It might very well have
appeared, so thought the Exile who recalled these things with so clear
an after-light upon them, that the lady had that object, and no other;
but for the moment there was a natural embarrassment in thinking so.

'You have written verse, Mr. Armstrong?' asked the Baroness.

'Reams,' Paul answered, with a laugh, though he was not entirely at his
ease.

'Oh,' said the lady, 'you must show me some of it; you must show it to
me all. I am sure, from your prose, that you have the true singing
gift; and when one can both think and sing, one is a poet, you know, Mr.
Armstrong.'

'I have nothing to show,' Paul answered; 'I have burnt all my poor stuff
long and long ago.'

'And you write no longer?' she asked--'you write verse no more? Oh, but
that is wicked--it is criminal to have the gift and not to use it
'But then, of course, one knows how much depends upon congeniality of
surrounding and society. There have been times when I have thought that
my own poor little pipe was silenced for ever. It is so easy to lose
heart; it is sometimes so very difficult to retain one's courage and
animation. Do the gentlemen remain here, by-the-by, to smoke, Mr.
Armstrong?'

There was a something odd in the way in which she used his name--a
something not at all easy to be defined--and it influenced Paul
strangely every time she spoke it. It was not altogether unlike a
caress, if one could associate an idea of that sort with the manner and
meaning of a great lady with whom one had not exchanged a word until
within the last half-hour. Paul knew not what to make of the grand dame;
but she fluttered and flattered him prodigiously, and in his excitement
the troubles which had seemed so chokingly bitter so brief a time ago
were all for the moment forgotten.

'They sit about the table for an hour or two after dinner,' Paul
responded, in answer to her last question.

'I notice,' said the lady, 'that there is a fire in the salon next door.
If you are not too wedded to your tobacco, I shall be grateful for your
society.'

'Oh, madam!' cried Paul, 'I am honoured beyond measure.'

And so, when the Baroness had sipped her small liqueur and rose, with
a queenly little inclination to the company, Paul rose also, and having
opened the door for her, followed her lead into the next apartment, a
spacious room, very dimly lighted, and as bare as if it had been made
ready for a ball. Here the Baroness established her seat upon a