in her chair.

"Yes," said Jean, a little bitterly. "That he would have small reason
to be jealous, even now that we are engaged."

"Don't be absurd!" she retorted sharply.

Jean shrugged his shoulders.

"And speaking of Paul Valmain," he went on, a menacing note creeping
into his tones, "I have been talking to Hector again this afternoon
about that night--the night that Valmain said he saw you enter the
house."

She looked at him quickly. Surely, after what she had said to Hector,
Hector had not dared to speak of the girl to whom he had
given--reprehensibly, she had taken pains to make Hector understand--a
key to Jean's studio. She believed she had frightened Hector and
Madame Mi-mi too thoroughly for that, and yet--if he had!

"Well?"--serenely, as her eyebrows went up.

"Nothing! He knows nothing! He heard nothing!" Jean flung out
impatiently. "But Hector is a fool, and Valmain said he saw you go in."

"Well, was I there?" she inquired frigidly.

"No, you were not there--naturally!" he asserted with wrathful
finality. "But--I have been thinking--if it were some one else!"

"Ah!" Myrna's smile was cold, as she rose with a curiously ominous air
from her chair. "Ah! Some one else! Well, since you bring up the
subject again, do you imagine I am so stupid that such a possibility
has not also occurred to _me_? Your conscience seems to trouble you,
Monsieur Jean! If there was some one else--a woman in your rooms from
two o'clock at night until daylight--you should know better who it was,
I imagine, than either Hector or Madame Mi-mi! And since I am your
fiancee, Monsieur Jean--perhaps you will explain!"

"But, _sacre nom d'un diable_!" Jean shouted in angry amazement. "I
know of no woman!"

"If there was a woman there it is inconceivable that you should not
know it"--Myrna's voice was monotonous, relentless.

"But, I tell you--_no_!"--Jean's hands went up in the air, as he raged
in exasperation. "Do you understand, that I tell you--no? It is not
so! There was no woman there!"

"Well, then?"--still monotonously.

"Well, then?" Jean stormed furiously, clenching his fists, "it can be
nothing but that cursed Valmain and his damned jealousy! It can be
nothing but a lie, all of it, that he has made up! It is all a lie
then--nothing but a lie! And so I am not through with him! He will
answer for it! I am not through with him! It will not be with swords
this time--we will fight with pisto