Monsieur Delarey like Turkish coffee?"

"Loves it."

"Intelligently?"

"How do you mean?"

"Does he love it inherently, or because you do?"

"You can find that out to-night."

"I shall come."

He got up, put his pipe into a case, and the case into his pocket, and
said:

"Hermione, if the analyst may have a word--"

"Yes--now."

"Don't let Monsieur Delarey, whatever his character, see now, or in the
future, the dirty little beggar staring at the angel. I use your own
preposterously inflated phrase. Men can't stand certain things and remain
true to the good in their characters. Humble adoration from a woman like
you would be destructive of blessed virtues in Antinous. Think well of
yourself, my friend, think well of your sphinxlike eyes. Haven't they
beauty? Doesn't intellect shoot its fires from them? Mon Dieu! Don't let
me see any prostration to-night, or I shall put three grains of something
I know--I always call it Turkish delight--into the Turkish coffee of
Monsieur Delarey, and send him to sleep with his fathers."

Hermione got up and held out her hands to him impulsively.

"Bless you, Emile!" she said. "You're a--"

There was a gentle tap on the door. Hermione went to it and opened it.
Selim stood outside with a pencil note on a salver.

"Ha! The little Townly has been!" said Artois.

"Yes, it's from her. You told her, Selim, that I was with Monsieur
Artois?"

"Yes, madame."

"Did she say anything?"

"She said, 'Very well,' madame, and then she wrote this. Then she said
again, 'Very well,' and then she went away."

"All right, Selim."

Selim departed.

"Delicious!" said Artois. "I can hear her speaking and see her drifting
away consumed by jealousy, in the fog."

"Hush, Emile, don't be so malicious."

"P'f! I must be to-day, for I too am--"

"Nonsense. Be good this evening, be very good."

"I will try."

He kissed her hand, bending his great form down with a slightly burlesque
air, and strode out without another word. Hermione sat down to read Miss
Townly's note:

"Dearest, never mind. I know that I must now accustom myself to be
nothing in your life. It is difficult at first, but what is
existence but a struggle? I feel that I am going to have another of
my neuralgic seizures. I wonder what it all means?--Your, EVELYN."

Hermione laid the note down, with a sigh and a little laugh.

"I wonder what it all means? Poor, dear Evelyn! Thank God, it sometim