ay you haven't got good
taste, anyhow, though she's a little too quiet for me."

"Talking with whom?" inquired Paul, in a cold voice.

"Why, that lady that just left here. She nearly ran into me getting
away."

"Schwartzberger," answered Paul, with great deliberation, as he folded
his newspaper, "I believe that a lively imagination is as necessary to
the ideal management of the pork-packing industry as to all other
business activities. Permit me to observe that I can predict for you
no cessation of the remarkable results you have achieved in your
chosen profession." And with a short nod he started down the path.

Schwartzberger's beady eyes blinked after Paul a moment.

"These Englishmen always do get up in the air over nothing," thought
the pork-packer, as he gazed after Paul with a puzzled look on the
wide expanse of his countenance. Then he turned his great bulk and
waddled ponderously into the hotel, in search of his particular
friend, the Comtesse de Boistelle.

Toward the landing on the lake Paul descended, with his heels biting
viciously into the gravel at every step.

"Confound these beastly people!" he growled. "Why are they allowed to
roam about the earth, making hideous the beautiful places." His soul
revolted at even the suggestion that he could have thought for any but
his beloved Lady--his Queen whom he had not seen for more than a
score of years, and would never, on this fair planet, behold again.

On a coign of vantage overlooking the steep slope the pale lady stood
with her face turned toward the Buergenstock. She watched Paul as he
stalked angrily down the hillside, and in her mind compared him with
the monster she had just avoided. She gazed after him till he reached
the slip, where a small boat was ready for him; and she lingered on
while he stepped lightly into the skiff, picked up the oars, and rowed
away in the style an Eton man never forgets. Motionless she remained,
until he disappeared behind a fringe of larches that crept close to
the shelving shore. Then slowly, as with regret, she turned to resume
her stroll.

A faint colour had stolen into her cheeks; the wonderful eyes had
grown very bright and wistfully tender and deep. The rare old lace on
her bosom fluttered with her quickened breath, as softly she murmured:

"Ah! My entrancing one, now I have seen thee--and I understand!" And
the larches by the shore trembled as if in sympathetic emotion as the
gentle breeze echoed her sigh