amused by it, and not at all
unwilling to measure swords with her. She was presumably an
adventuress, clever, designing, desirous of turning me round her
finger, but she was also a pretty woman.

"I beg your pardon," she began almost at once in English, when the
waiter had brought her a plate of soup, and she was toying with the
first spoonful, speaking in a low constrained, almost sullen voice, as
though it cost her much to break through the _convenances_ in thus
addressing a stranger.

"You will think it strange of me," she went on, "but I am rather
awkwardly situated, in fact in a position of difficulty, even of
danger, and I venture to appeal to you as a countryman, an English
officer."

"How do you know that?" I asked, quickly concluding that my light
baggage had been subjected to scrutiny, and wondering what subterfuge
she would adopt to explain it.

"It is easy to see that. Gentlemen of your cloth are as easily
recognizable as if your names were printed on your back."

"And as they are generally upon our travelling belongings." I looked
at her steadily with a light laugh, and a crimson flush came on her
face. However hardened a character, she had preserved the faculty of
blushing readily and deeply, the natural adjunct of a cream-like
complexion.

"Let me introduce myself in full," I said, pitying her obvious
confusion; and I handed her my card, which she took with a shamefaced
air, rather foreign to her general demeanour.

"Lieut.-Colonel Basil Annesley, Mars and Neptune Club," she read
aloud. "What was your regiment?"

"The Princess Ulrica Rifles, but I left it on promotion. I am
unattached for the moment, and waiting for reemployment."

"Your own master then?"

"Practically, until I am called upon to serve. I hope to get a staff
appointment. Meanwhile I am loafing about Europe."

"Do you go beyond Lucerne?"

"Across the St. Gothard certainly, and as far as Como, perhaps beyond.
And you? Am I right in supposing we are to be fellow travellers by the
Engadine express?" I went on by way of saying something. "To Lucerne
or further?"

CHAPTER II.

"Probably." The answer was given with great hesitation. "If I go by
this train at all, that is to say."

"Have you any doubts?"

"Why, yes. To tell you the truth, I dread the journey. I have been
doing so ever since--since I felt it must be made. Now I find it ever
so much worse than I expected."

"Why is that, if I may ask?"

"You see, I