hat Mme. de St. Cyr was not a party
to the theft, but had merely been hired by Ulster, who, discovering the
state of her affairs, had not, therefore, revealed his own,--and
this without in the least implying any knowledge on my part of the
transaction. Ulster must have seen the necessity of leaving the business
in the hands of a competent person, and Mme. de St. Cyr's financial
talent was patent. There were few ladies in Paris who would have
rejected the opportunity. Of these things I felt a tolerable certainty.

"We throng with foreigners," said Madame, archly, as I reached this
point. "Diplomates, too. The Baron Stahl arrives in a day."

"I have heard," I responded. "You are acquainted?"

"Alas! no," she said. "I knew his father well, though he himself is not
young. Indeed, the families thought once of intermarriage. But nothing
has been said on the subject for many years. His Excellency, I hear,
will strengthen himself at home by an alliance with the young Countess,
the natural daughter of the Emperor."

"He surely will never be so imprudent as to rivet his chain by such a
link!"

"It is impossible to compute the dice in those despotic countries," she
rejoined,--which was pretty well, considering the freedom enjoyed by
France at that period.

"It may be," I suggested, "that the Baron hopes to open this delicate
subject with you himself, Madame."

"It is unlikely," she said, sighing. "And for Delphine, should I tell
her his Excellency preferred scarlet, she would infallibly wear blue.
Imagine her, Monsieur, in fine scarlet, with a scarf of gold gauze, and
rustling grasses in that unruly gold hair of hers! She would be divine!"

The maternal instinct as we have it here at Paris confounds me. I do
not comprehend it. Here was a mother who did not particularly love her
child, who would not be inconsolable at her loss, would not ruin her own
complexion by care of her during illness, would send her through fire
and water and every torture to secure or maintain a desirable rank, who
yet would entangle herself deeply in intrigue, would not hesitate to
tarnish her own reputation, and would, in fact, raise heaven and earth
to--endow this child with a brilliant match. And Mme. de St. Cyr seemed
to regard Delphine, still further, as a cool matter of Art.

These little confidences, moreover, are provoking. They put you yourself
so entirely out of the question.

"Mlle. de St. Cyr's beauty is peerless," I said, slightly c