,
how did you--no, hold on! Myrna, we'll motor over to Marseilles for
the clay to-day, instead of waiting until to-morrow. We'll have
something else to show old Bidelot by the time he gets here! You go up
to the house and order an early luncheon. Jean will join us, and we'll
have from now to Marseilles and back again to talk."

"Splendid!" agreed Myrna. "You will, won't you, Jean?"

"I?" said Jean, in sudden dismay. He, to eat with the _grand monde_!
But perhaps he had not understood--they would give him lunch with Jules
and Nanette and Marie-Louise. He had heard Nanette make that very
plain to Marie-Louise a little while ago. "I--I have my dinner with
me," he stammered, and pointed to a paper parcel in the stern of the
boat. "I will be ready when mademoiselle and monsieur are ready."

"Oh, will you?" laughed Henry Bliss. "Well, I guess not! You'll come
up and lunch with Myrna and me."

"No," said Jean, embarrassed, "I--"

"Yes, you will," insisted Henry Bliss.

"Why, Jean," expostulated Myrna, "of course you will, we--" she stopped
abruptly. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "I think I know! It's what that
stupid Nanette said to Marie-Louise about sitting at table with us,
isn't it?"

"What's that?" demanded Henry Bliss quickly. "What has Marie-Louise to
do with--h'm--yes--I remember"--his face screwed up perplexedly. "Her
fiance, she said--h'm--yes--it _is_ a bit awkward, isn't it?"

"It's nothing of the kind!" declared Myrna, and, with a laugh,
possessed herself of the paper parcel from the boat. "It's quite a
different matter. If only half of what father has said is true, Jean,
it would be an honour for any one to have Jean Laparde as a guest. And
anyway I've got your lunch now!" She waved it in the air, threatening
him merrily with it; then turned, and ran toward the house. "You come
when you're called, sir!" she flung back over her shoulder, laughing
again.

-- VIII --

SHADOWS BEFORE

Who, in all France, a week ago, had heard of Bernay-sur-Mer? Upon
whose lips to-day was not the name of that little Mediterranean
village? Men, the great men of France, came at the bidding of their
confrere, the American millionaire art-critic; came sceptically--and
stayed to wonder. And because there were no accommodations in
Bernay-sur-Mer, they made their headquarters at Marseilles, and their
daily pilgrimages from there; an arrangement that, if in a measure
inconvenient, was not without its compen