the
black whiskers perplexed.

"Did you speak, monsieur?" she said, to give herself countenance.

"I spoke nothing," he replied still in the smooth accent which was not
familiar to her. "A man of business like myself, feels bound, if he has
any natural turning that way, to become a physiognomist and
thought-reader in order not to pay too dearly for bargains; I am happy
to say that I rarely blunder."

"Then you can read my disposition?" exclaimed Cesarine mockingly.

"I knew it before."

"Indeed! then you would do me a great service, monsieur, if you would
tell me how it strikes you, as an average man. For I assure you," she
went on, taking a seat without pointing out one to him, "that some days
I do not understand myself, a most humiliating thing, though ancient
wisdom acknowledged that the hardest thing is self-knowledge."

"If you authorize me to be outspoken, madame, I will enlighten you,"
returned Cantagnac.

"Do not let me be in your way!" impertinently.

"It is the most simple thing, for your entire character is described in
these four words: venal, ferocious, frivolous and insubmissive!"

She sprang to her feet with quivering lips and flashing eyes, while he,
like a statue, lowered upon its pedestal, calmly sank upon an arm-chair.
Then, looking round and listening to make certain that they had no
observers, he leaned both elbows on the table and fixed his sea-blue
eyes on the startled lady.

"Kaiserina!" he said in a commanding voice, without the least softening
with that southern suavity, "for how much do you want to sell me
secretly, your husband's invention?"

The altered voice appeared not at all strange, but the words were so
unexpected that she merely stared in bewilderment while he had even more
deliberately to repeat them. Deeply frightened by this mystery which in
vain she tried to solve, she forced a laugh.

"Oh, it is no jest--I am one of the most serious of men," proceeded
Cantagnac, "as becomes one of the busiest."

She looked at him like a fawn, which, having never seen a human being,
is suddenly peered upon in the lair by the hunter.

"You want to know who I am, speaking to you in this style? See my card
on the table there--it says I am Cantagnac, the agent, modest but
passing for rather subtle, of a private and limited company recently
established with a cash capital fully paid up of several millions of
_fredericks_--for, to tell the plain facts to you--the obtaining for its
pro