f the
Tuileries gardens, emerged from a group of skaters and, approaching
Calvert and Madame de St. Andre, made a profound bow before the latter.

"Is Madame de St. Andre to show favor to none but Monsieur Calvert?" he
asks, in a low voice that had an accent of mockery in it as he bent over
the young girl's hand.

"'Tis no favor that I show Monsieur Calvert," she replied, smiling.
"'Tis a privilege to skate with so perfect a master of the art."

"I shall be most happy to take a lesson from Monsieur later in the
afternoon," returned St. Aulaire, courteously, but with a disagreeable
smile playing about his mouth. "In the meantime, if Monsieur will but
resign you for a time--" He stopped and shrugged his shoulders slightly.
Calvert moved from his place beside Madame de St. Andre.

As he made his way toward the shore, intending to remove his skates and
find Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Morris, d'Azay and Beaufort came up and urged
upon him to join them. Both were good skaters, but the young American
excelled them in a certain lightness and grace, and the three friends,
as they circled about, trying a dozen difficult and showy manoeuvres on
the ice, attracted much attention. It was after half an hour of the
vigorous exercise and as Mr. Calvert stopped for an instant to take
breath and pay his respects to Madame de Flahaut, who had ventured upon
the ice in a chair-sleigh surrounded by her admirers, that Monsieur de
St. Aulaire again presented himself before him.

"I have come for my lesson, Monsieur," he said to Calvert, bowing after
his incomparably graceful fashion, which Calvert (who had never before
wasted thought upon such things) suddenly found himself envying, and
with the disagreeable smile still upon his lips.

"I am no skating-master, Monsieur," returned the young man, quietly, and
with as good grace as he was master of, "but I shall be happy to have a
turn upon the ice with you," and with that he moved off, leaving St.
Aulaire to stay or follow as he chose. He chose to follow and skated
rapidly after Calvert with no very benevolent look on his handsome,
dissipated face. Although he was by far the best skater among the French
gentlemen who thronged the ice, and although it was little short of a
marvel that he should be so active at his age, he was scarcely a match
for the younger man either in lightness or quickness of movement. And
although his splendid dress and jewels so overshadowed Mr. Calvert's
quiet appearance