eti meekly, 'but you have cured
me.'

In the pause that followed this speech, Mr. Feist leaned forward and
spoke to Margaret across the table.

'I think we have a mutual friend, Madame,' he said.

'Indeed?' Margaret spoke coolly; she did not like to be called
'Madame' by people who spoke English.

'Mr. Van Torp,' explained the young man.

'Yes,' Margaret said, after a moment's hesitation, 'I know Mr. Van
Torp; he came over on the same steamer.'

The others at the table were suddenly silent, and seemed to be
listening. Lady Maud's clear eyes rested on Mr. Feist's face.

'He's quite a wonderful man, I think,' observed the latter.

'Yes,' assented the Primadonna indifferently.

'Don't you think he is a wonderful man?' insisted Mr. Feist, with his
disagreeable drawl.

'I daresay he is,' Margaret answered, 'but I don't know him very
well.'

'Really? That's funny!'

'Why?'

'Because I happen to know that he thinks everything of you, Madame
Cordova. That's why I supposed, you were intimate friends.'

The others had listened hitherto in a sort of mournful silence,
distinctly bored. Lady Maud's eyes now turned to Margaret, but the
latter still seemed perfectly indifferent, though she was wishing that
some one else would speak. Griggs turned to Mr. Feist, who was next to
him.

'You mean that he is a wonderful man of business, perhaps,' he said.

'Well, we all know he's that, anyway,' returned his neighbour. 'He's
not exactly a friend of mine, not exactly!' A meaning smile wrinkled
the unhealthy face and suddenly made it look older. 'All the same, I
think he's quite wonderful. He's not merely an able man, he's a man of
powerful intellect.'

'A Nickel Napoleon,' suggested the barrister, who was bored to death
by this time, and could not imagine why Lady Maud followed the
conversation with so much interest.

'Your speaking of nickel,' said the peer, at her elbow, 'reminds me of
that extraordinary new discovery--let me see--what is it?'

'America?' suggested the barrister viciously.

'No,' said his lordship, with perfect gravity, 'it's not that. Ah yes,
I remember! It's a process for making nitric acid out of air.'

Lady Maud nodded and smiled, as if she knew all about it, but her eyes
were again scrutinising Mr. Feist's face. Her neighbour, whose hobby
was applied science, at once launched upon a long account of the
invention. From time to time the beauty nodded and said that she quite
understood, which