n the study--or the search for
opportunities of study--of sides of life with which she was unfamiliar
as to be, for the most part, blind to what took place immediately
around her. General Bellairs himself (who vaguely supposed that some
man might try to make love to his daughter five years hence, and
thereupon be promptly sent off with a flea in his ear) was not more
unconscious than she that there was, had been, or might be anything, as
the phrase runs, 'between' the two junior members of the party. Lady
Deane had no hints to give and no questions to ask; she seated herself
placidly in a corner and began to write in a large note-book. She had
been unwillingly compelled to 'scamp' Marseilles, but, as she wrote,
she found that the rough notes she was copying, aided by fresh memory,
supplied her with an ample fund of material. Alternately she smiled
contentedly to herself, and gazed out of the window with a preoccupied
air. Clearly a plot was brewing-, and the author was grateful to Dora
for restricting her interruptions to an occasional impatient sigh and
the taking up and dropping again of her Tauchnitz.

With the men tongues moved more.

"Well, General," said Deane, "what's Miss Dora's ultimatum about your
staying in Paris?"

Charlie pricked up his ears and buried his face behind La Vie
Parisienne.

"You'll think me very weak, Deane," rejoined the General, with an
apologetic laugh, "but I've promised to go straight on if she wants me
to."

"And does she?"

"I don't know what the child has got in her head, but she says she'll
tell me when she gets to Paris. We shall have a day with you anyhow; I
don't think she's so set on not staying as she was, but I don't profess
to understand her fancies. Still, as you see, I yield to them."

"Man's task in the world," said Deane. "Eh, Charlie? What are you
hiding behind that paper for?"

"I was only looking at the pictures."

"Quite enough too. You're going to stay in Paris, aren't you?"

"Don't know yet, old fellow. It depends on whether I get a letter
calling me back or not."

"Hang it, one might as well be in a house where the shooting turns out
a fraud. Nobody knows that he won't have a wire any morning and have to
go back to town. My wife 'll be furious if you desert her, General."

"Oh, I hope it won't come to that."

"I hope awfully that I shall be able to stay," said Charlie, with
obvious sincerity.

"Then," observed Deane with a slight smile, "if the G