dulgent, if occasionally patronising and
sometimes impatient.

Champagne frothed into fresh glasses. As soon as the band struck up
another dance, Athenais drifted away in the arms of Monsieur Le Brun.
Liane gazed round the room, acknowledged the salutations of several
friends, signalled gaily to a pair of mercenaries on the far side of
the dancing floor, and issued peremptory orders to Benouville.

"Go, Chu-chu, and ask Angele to dance with you. She is being left to
bore herself while Victor dances with Constance. Moreover, I desire to
afflict Monsieur Martin with my confidences."

With the utmost docility Benouville effaced himself.

"Eh, bien, Monsieur Duchemin!"

"Eh, bien, madame la comtesse?" Liane sipped at her champagne, making
impudent eyes at Lanyard over the brim of her glass.

"By what appears, you have at last torn yourself away from the charming
society of the Chateau de Montalais."

"As you see."

"That was a long visit you made at the chateau, my old one?"

"Madame la comtesse is well informed," Lanyard returned, phlegmatic.

"One hears what one hears."

"One had the misfortune to fall foul of an assassin," Lanyard took the
trouble to explain.

"An assassin!"

"The same Apache who attacked--with others--the party from Montalais at
Montpellier-le-Vieux."

"And you were wounded?"

Lanyard assented. The lady made a shocked face and uttered appropriate
noises. "As you know," Lanyard added.

Liane Delorme pretended not to hear that last. "And the ladies of the
chateau," she enquired--"they were sympathetic, one feels sure?"

"They were most kind."

"It was not serious, this wound--no?"

"Mademoiselle may judge when she knows I was unable to leave my bed for
nearly three weeks."

"But what atrocity! And this Apache--?"

"Remains at large."

"Ah, these police!" And the lady described a sign of contempt that was
wholly unladylike. "Still, you are well recovered, by the way you
dance."

"One cannot complain."

"What an experience! Still--" Liane again buried her nose in her glass
and regarded Lanyard with a look of mysterious understanding.
Re-emerging, she resumed: "Still, not without its compensations, eh,
mon ami?"

"That is as one regards it, mademoiselle."

"Oh! oh!" There was any amount of deep significance in these
exclamations. "One may regard that in more ways than one."

"Indeed," Lanyard agreed with his most winning manner: "One may for
instance remember that I reco