al grimace: "Is
one, then, so unfortunate as to have been forgotten by Madame la
Comtesse de Lorgnes?"

With any other woman than Athenais Reneaux he would have hesitated to
deal so bold an offensive stroke; but his confidence in her quickness
of apprehension and her unshakable self-possession was both implicit
and well-placed. For she received this overt notification of the
success of his quest without one sign other than a look of dawning
puzzlement.

"Madame la comtesse...?" she murmured with a rising inflection.

"But monsieur is mistaken," the other stammered, biting her lip.

"Surely one cannot have been so stupid!" Lanyard apologised.

"But this is Mademoiselle Delorme," Athenais said ... "Monsieur Paul
Martin."

Liane Delorme! Those syllables were like a spoken spell to break the
power of dark enchantment which had hampered Lanyard's memory ever
since first sight of this woman in the Cafe de l'Univers at Nant. A
great light began to flood his understanding, but he was denied time to
advantage himself immediately of its illumination: Liane Delorme was
quick to parry and riposte.

"How strange monsieur should think he had ever known me by a name ...
What was it? But no matter! For now I look more closely, I myself
cannot get over the impression that I have known Monsieur--Martin, did
you say?--somewhere, sometime ... But Paul Martin? Not unless monsieur
has more than one name."

"Then it would seem that mademoiselle and I are both in error. The loss
is mine."

That gun spiked, Lanyard began to breathe more freely. "It is not too
late to make up that loss, monsieur." Liane Delorme was actually
chuckling in appreciation of his readiness, pleased with him even in
the moment of her own discomfiture; her eyes twinkling merrily at him
above the fan with which she hid a convulsed countenance. "Surely two
people so possessed with regret at never having known each other should
lose no time improving their acquaintance! Dear Athenais: do ask us to
sit at your table."

While the waiter fetched additional chairs, the woman made her escorts
known: Messieurs Benouville et Le Brun, two extravagantly insignificant
young men, exquisitely groomed and presumably wealthy, who were making
the bravest efforts to seem unaware that to be seen with Liane Delorme
conferred an unimpeachable cachet. Lanyard remarked, however, that
neither ventured to assume proprietorial airs; while Liane's attitude
toward them was generally in