tube and told the chauffeur to go
back to the Ritz.

They both sat silent, palpitating with rage, and when they got there he
followed her into the lift and up to the sitting-room.

He came in and shut the door and strode over beside her, and then he
almost hissed,

"You are asking too much of me. I demand an explanation. Tell me
yourself about it. Here is your note."

Zara took it, with infinite disdain, and, touching it as though it were
some noisome reptile, she opened it and read aloud,

_"Beautiful Comtesse, when can I see you again?"_

"The vile wretch!" she said contemptuously. "That is how men insult
women!" And she looked up passionately at Tristram. "You are all the
same."

"I have not insulted you," he flashed. "It is perfectly natural that I
should be angry at such a scene, and if this brute is to be found again
to-night he shall know that I will not permit him to write insolent
notes to my wife."

She flung the hateful piece of paper into the fire and turned towards
her room.

"I beg you to do nothing further about the matter," she said. "This
loathsome man was half drunk. It is quite unnecessary to follow it up;
it will only make a scandal, and do no good. But you can understand
another thing. I will not have my word doubted, nor be treated as an
offending domestic--as you have treated me to-night." And without
further words she went into her room.

Tristram, left alone, paced up and down; he was wild with rage, furious
with her, with himself, and with the man. With her because he had told
her once, before the wedding, that when they came to cross swords there
would be no doubt as to who would be master! and in the three encounters
which already their wills had had she had each time come off the
conqueror! He was furious with himself, that he had not leaned forward
at dinner to see the man hand the note, and he was frenziedly furious
with the stranger, that he had dared to turn his insolent eyes upon his
wife.

He would go back to the Cafe de Paris, and, if the man was there, call
him to account, and if not, perhaps he could obtain his name. So out he
went.

But the waiters vowed they knew nothing of the gentleman; the whole
party had been perfect strangers, and they had no idea as to where they
had gone on. So this enraged young Englishman spent the third night of
his honeymoon in a hunt round the haunts of Paris, but with no success;
and at about six o'clock in the morning came back baffl