emenceau who had stood witness to the tragedy
in the meadow. Hence his inattention to the Russian's despatch, which he
naturally would disbelieve, and probably to her prolonged absence.

It was humiliating that he had not searched for her.

"What! no allusion to my stay--no hint of my possible return?"

"His silence has been perfect as the grave. Next morning after you left
and did not return, master looked at the cover which I had from habit
placed for you, and remarked: 'Oh, by the way, you will have another to
lay to-morrow, as we shall have two guests for, I hope, a long time.' He
meant the Danielses, madame. Their coming made it a little livelier for
him and M. Antonino."

"It looks like a plot," murmured Cesarine, indignantly, as she pictured
the happy reunions out of which she had been displaced in memory--not
even her untouched plate left as memento! her chair taken by Rebecca
Daniels!

"Mr. Daniels is like M. Antonino, too!" continued Hedwig. "Not only is
he getting up the company for the master's inventions, but for the young
gentleman's--he has made such a marvel of a rifle--they put a tin box
into it, and lo! you can fire three hundred shots as quick as a wink! I
walk in terror since I heard of it! and I touch things as if they would
go off and make mince-meat of me in the desert to it."

"Never mind that!" cried Madame Clemenceau, testily.

"Although the connection between piping at music halls and enchanting
the bulls and bears of the Bourse is not clear to me, I can understand
how M. Daniels, as a financial agent, should be lodging under our roof,
but his daughter--"

"She is our housekeeper, and, to tell the plain truth, madame, we have
lived nicely, although money was scarce, since she ruled the roost. Ah,
these Jews are clever managers!"

Cesarine did not like the earnest tone of praise and hastened to say
bluntly:

"I suppose, then, she threw the spell over him again which once before,
at Munich, caused him, a tame bookworm, to fight for her like a
king-maker?"

"Mademoiselle Rebecca! she act the fascinatress!" exclaimed Hedwig, with
a burst of indignation.

"What is there extraordinary, pray, in a husband, apparently deserted by
his wife, paying attention to another handsome young woman?"

"Why, madame, you must forget that master is the most honorable
gentleman as ever was, and that Mademoiselle Rebecca is a perfect lady!"
Then, perceiving that her enthusiasm on the latter head was n