THAT afternoon Rosina took her maid and went for a walk. As a companion Ottillie was certainly less congenial than the lofty and eccentric gentleman who had just taken his departure for Leipsic; but going out alone with a maid is such an eminently proper occupation for a young widow travelling abroad, that the knowledge that she was entirely above suspicion should have compensated for any slight ennui which Rosina may have suffered.

They first went a few blocks up and down the Bahnhofstrasse, and sent the various packages which were the natural result of such a course of action to the hotel; then came the Stadthaus Garten and the Alpen-Quai.

The Quai was as gay as the Quai in Lucerne, or as any other Promenade in Switzerland at that hour and season. Rosina, tired with her shopping, seated herself upon a bench and watched with interest the vast variety and animation of the never-ending double rank which passed slowly along before her. Beyond, the Zurichersee lay brilliantly blue beneath the midsummer sun, and far away, upon the opposite shore, the Alps rose upward, dark gray below, and shining white above.

There was a sudden exclamation, and out from among the crowd thronging before her came that American whose steamer-chair had elbowed Rosina’s on the passage over. There was no manner of doubt as to his joy over meeting his fellow-traveller again, and they first shook hands and then sat down to re-tie their mutual recollections. The result was that Ottillie returned alone to the hotel.

“And since Berlin?” Rosina asked, interestedly.

“Since Berlin—” said the man (and she noticed that his voice appeared to be pitched quite two octaves higher than that other voice which had lately dawned upon her ear), “oh, I’ve been lots of places since then,—France and Germany and Italy, up to Innspruch and into Austria and over to Buda-Pesth, and then to Salzburg and down through the Tyrol here. I’ve never quit seeing new places since I finished my business,—not once.”

“Dear me, but you must have had a good time!”

“Yes, I have. But I’ve often wished myself back on the ‘Kronprinz,’—haven’t you?”“No, I don’t think that I have. The person that I saw the most of on the ‘Kronprinz’ has been with me ever since.”

The American looked surprised, having supposed himself to be that very person. Rosina laughed at his face.

“I mean my maid,” she explained.

Then he laughed too.

“Did you ever smoke any more?”

“Oh, dear, no. Don’t you remember how that one cigarette used me up?”

“You ought to have kept on,—you’d have liked them after a while.”

“Perhaps; but some one told me that they would make my fingers yellow.”

“Oh, pshaw, not if you hold them the right way.”

“The smoke got in my eyes so too; oh, I didn’t seem to care anything about it.”

Then they rose and joined the promenaders, who were beginning to grow a little fewer with the approach of the dinner hour.

“And where have you been all this time?” the man asked.

“In Paris buying clothes, and in Lucerne wearing them.”

“You’re travelling with friends?”

“Yes, most of the time. They went on to Constance to-day, and I am to join them there Thursday.”

“If you haven’t anything else to do to-night, won’t you go with me to the Tonhalle and hear the music? It appears to be quite the thing to do.”

“I think that that would be lovely, and I’d like to very much, only we must be back at the hotel by ten or half-past, for I am really very tired.”

“That’s easily done; you know we can go whenever we want to. What time shall I call for you?”

“I’ll be ready after eight.”

“I’ll come about quarter past, and we can stroll about first and see something of the night side of Zurich.”

“The night side of everything here is so beautiful,” said Rosina; “the shops that are temptation incarnate by day become after dark nothing but bottomless pits into which all my money and my good resolutions tumble together.”

By this time they had crossed the bridge and followed the Uto nearly to the Badeanstalt; it seemed time to turn their faces hotel-ward, and so they did so, and parted for an hour or two, during which to dine and to dress were the main objects in life for each.Then about half-past eight Monsieur l’AmÉricain came for his country-woman, and both went out into the charm and glow of the Continental night, with no other thought than that of enjoying a placid and uninterrupted evening amidst the music and electric lights of the Tonhalle. That such was not to be the case was one of the secrets of the immediate future, and the advantage of the future, when it is immediate, is that it is soon forced to stand and deliver as regards its secrets. Rosina, totally unconscious of what was impending over her head, entered fully into the spirit of gayety which prevailed, and absorbed the pleasure of the scene with open heart and hands. It is good to grow to womanhood (or manhood) without losing a child’s capacity for spontaneous enjoyment,—to be capable of joy without knowing the reason why, to be flooded with enthusiasm for one knows not what. It was our lady’s luck to possess this charm, and to be able to give herself up wholly to the end in view, and drink its glass to the dregs,—which in her life had generally proved to be sugar and to be almost as good as the liquid,—only requiring a spoon.

The concert, as is the way with summer concerts, was so arranged as to be easily varied with something cool and refreshing; and when her escort suggested that they should do as all the others did, a table was found, and they sat down to ices and fairy cakes, amid the flowers and colored lights.

It was about nine o’clock, and Rosina, in spite of the environments, was beginning to realize forcibly that more interesting men than the one before her undoubtedly did exist, when the ice that she was putting in her mouth suddenly seemed to glide the full length of her spine, giving her a terrible sensation of frozen fright. She had just heard somebody behind her speaking in German to the garÇon, and German, French, or English, that voice was unmistakable. How, what, or why she knew not, but he was surely there behind her, and the instant after he passed close at her side.

Of course it was Von Ibn, and the look that he gave her as he bowed, and walked on at once, dyed her face as deeply as ever a face was dyed in all the world before. She looked after him with a sort of gasp in her eyes, forgetting the man opposite her, the crowd around her, everybody, everything, except that one tall figure which with the passing of each instant was disappearing more and more among the labyrinth of tables and people. She saw him pause at last and seem to hesitate, and her heart throbbed wildly in her throat as she felt, with that strange instinctive intuition which continues to follow one train of thought while our very life seems paralyzed by another, that if he took a seat with his back to her, the action would be witness to a displeasure far beyond what he must be feeling if he so placed himself as to be able to watch her.

He stood still, with his usual halt for deliberation, and then, at the end of a long minute, seated himself so that his profile was presented to her view.

“Now,” she said to herself, “he will look away very carefully for a while, and then he will look at us;” and with the thought her breath mounted tumultuously.

The music, which had been playing loudly, wound up to a crashing pitch just here, and then ceased suddenly. With its ceasing her escort, who rejoiced in the well-known “wide-awake American look,” and saw all that was to be seen within his range of vision, spoke:

“You knew that man who just passed, didn’t you?”

She started, having forgotten the very existence of him who addressed her.

“Yes, oh, yes,” she said confusedly; “I know him very well indeed,” and then she was choked to silence by Von Ibn, who turned and gave her a carefully cold look of complete unrecognition. It was too elaborate to be genuine, but it made her feel sick all over; for where other women had brains or souls, Rosina had a heart, and again a heart, and yet once more a heart. And that heart was not only the mainspring of her physical life, but it was also the source of all her thoughts and actions. Von Ibn’s haughty stare pierced it to the very centre; she knew exactly what he was thinking, and the injustice of appearances goaded her to distraction. She did not stop to consider whether his own re-appearance was or was not an unworthy trick; she only writhed painfully under the lash of his vast displeasure. The American continued to probe her face with his eyes, but for that she cared not a whit; her only care was for those other eyes, those two great dark-circled, heavy-lidded eyes which knew no mask and tore her to the quick. Her mind fled here and there among the possibilities of the present, and found but one end to every vista, and that end grew momentarily in importance until she felt that at all costs he who glowered from afar must learn the falsity of his own imaginings and so restore her peace of mind to her. She looked upon her American friend as a mere means towards that end, a tool to quickly accomplish that which her impatience could no longer delay. So she leaned suddenly forward and threw herself upon his mercy.“I must tell you,” she cried hurriedly, “I know him very well—very, very well. I did not know that he was in Zurich, and he—he did not expect to see me here. I want to speak to him; I must speak to him—I must!” And then, without paying any attention to the other’s look of astonishment, she added with haste, “I wish that you would go to him and beg him to come to me for five minutes. I only want five minutes. And some day, perhaps, I’ll be able to do you a good turn too.”

The American did not look exactly rejoiced over this latest development in their acquaintance, but he rose from his chair and asked what name he should address the stranger by. Rosina told him, and he was sufficiently unversed in the world of music to have never heard it before and to experience a difficulty in getting it straight now.

“Von Ibn, Von Ibn,” Rosina repeated impatiently. “Oh, I am so much obliged to you; he—he—”

She stopped; some queer grip was at her throat. Her companion was touched; he had never imagined her going all to pieces like that, and he felt sorry for the terrible earnestness betrayed in her voice and manner.

“I’ll go,” he said, “and he shall be here in five minutes.”Then he walked away, and she bent her eyes upon her music-card, asking herself if it was possible that not four full days had elapsed since the first one left her to seek Von Ibn at her request. This time she did not look after the messenger, she could not; she only felt able to breathe and try to grow calmer so that whatever might—

Ah, the long minutes!

Then a voice at her side said, almost harshly:

“You wish to speak to me, madame!”

She looked up and straight into his eyes; their blackness was so cool and hard that some women’s courage would have been daunted; but the courage of Rosina was a mighty one that rose with all opposing difficulties.

“Why are you not en route to Leipsic?” she asked.

“Why are you not in Constance?” he retorted.

“Sit down,” she said, “and I will tell you.”

“I do not wish to take the place of your friend,” he answered, with a stab of sharpest contempt.

“I think that he will not return for a little.”

Von Ibn remained standing, in the attitude of one detained against his inclination. She could not but resent the attitude, but she felt that her need of the moment required the swallowing of all resentment, and she did so. She was not able to raise her eyes to his a second time, but fixed them instead upon her card, and began in a low tone:

“Monsieur, I intended going—”

“I can’t hear what you say,” he interrupted.

“You’ll have to sit down then; I can’t speak any louder; I’m afraid that I shall cry,” in spite of herself her voice trembled at the last words.

“Why should you cry?” he asked, and he sat down at the table beside her, and, leaning his chin upon his hand, turned his eyes upon her with a look that blended undisguised anger with a strange and passionate hunger.

She was biting her lip,—the under one,—unconscious of the fact that by so doing she rendered the corners of her mouth quite distracting; but he perceived both cause and result, and both the anger and the hunger in his gaze deepened as he looked, apparently in a blacker humor than ever.

“Why should you cry?” he said again, after a minute; “you are in a beautiful spot, listening to most excellent music, and you had with you (before I come) a friend very agreeable. Why should you cry?”

She clasped her hands hard and fast together.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “I—I hardly know how to speak in the noise and the crowd! I feel quite crazy! I don’t know what I am saying—” she stopped short.

He leaned a little towards her.

“Let us walk outside a minute,” he said. “Monsieur will surely know that we are not far. In the air it is better,—yes?”

“But what will he think?”

“Mon Dieu, let him think what he will! I also have had thinking this night. Let him think a little.”

He rose as he spoke, and she rose too. Already the anger in his eyes was fading fast before the sight of her so genuine emotion. They went out into the garden, and there she took up her explanation again.

“You thought I stayed here because of that man, didn’t you?”

“Donnerwetter!” he cried violently; “here he returns already again!”

It was indeed the American, approaching as fast as the crowd would let him. His face bore a curious expression. One might have gathered from it that he was much more clever, or much more stupid, than the vast majority gave him credit for being. The instant that he was near enough to speak, he began in out-of-breath accents:

“I’ve just met some people that I haven’t seen in years, and they want me to drive with them up by the University and see the town by moonlight, and I wondered if I could find you here in three-quarters of an hour—”

Rosina looked at him helplessly, divining that he supposed a degree of friendship between herself and Von Ibn which would cause his proposition to be most warmly welcome.

But Von Ibn spoke at once, coldly, but politely.

“Perhaps madame will permit me to escort her to her hotel this evening. If she will do so, I shall be most happy.”

The American looked eagerly at Rosina.

“I am going very soon,” she said; “perhaps that will be best.”

He appeared puzzled.

“If you’d rather I stayed—” he suggested.

“No,” said Von Ibn sharply, “it is better that you go!” then he added, in a somewhat milder tone, “it is very fine, the moonlight from the University.”

When they were alone, he was silent and led her out of the crowded garden down upon the Quai. It was a superb night, and the moon and its golden beams were mirrored in the lake. Little waves came running tranquilly across the shivering silver sheet and tossing themselves gently up against the stone-sheathed bank; some merry boat-loads were drifting out among the shadows, listening to the music from the shore and sending a silver echo of laughter to join in its accords.

They walked on until something of their own tumult was stayed by the stillness, and then Von Ibn said quietly:

“Tell me of what you were saying.”

“I was saying that you thought that I had remained here because of that man, and yet it was really all an accident.”

He shrugged his shoulders slightly.

“But you are quite free,—and he seems very nice, and is of your own country and all so agreeable.”

“I was really too tired to go to Constance, but—”

“Oh, madame, je vous en prie,” he interrupted, “no explanation is needful. It does not interest me, I assure you.”

“I did not want to go to Constance until Thursday,” she went steadily on; “but I could not stay here because—because—”

“Yes,” he interrupted, “all that I have understand,—I understand all.”

“So,” she continued, “I packed to go, and meant to go, and then when you told me that you were leaving too, I thought that I might just as well adhere to my—”

“What is ‘adhere’?” he broke in; “that word I have never known before.”

“It means—well—it means ‘stick to.’”

“Glue paste?”

She felt as if a clown had suddenly turned a somersault into the midst of the death scene of Hamlet!

“Not glue paste,” she explained carefully; “of course, in one way, it means the same thing; but I meant that when I knew that you were going, I felt that I might just as well do as I had originally intended doing, and remain here to rest a little.”

“And you repose by coming to the Tonhalle with a gentleman?” he asked in a tone of smothered sarcasm.

“I met him this afternoon as I was walking—”

“Have you only know him first this afternoon?”

“Monsieur!” she cried in horror, “I came on the steamer with him from New York, and he went to college with my cousin!”

Von Ibn gave another shrug.

“You tell everything very cleverly,” he remarked; “but, my dear madame, we have too many difficulties,—it is always that between us, and—what is your proverb?—no smoke without over a fire?—Eh bien, I begin to grow weary.”

“Don’t you believe what I have just told you?” she demanded.

They were near the further end of the Quai where the crowd was thinnest and the play of moonbeam and shadow most alluring. He stopped and looked long upon the shining water, and then long upon her face.

“Yes,” he said at last, “I do believe.” He held out his hand, “I do believe now, but I must tell you that truly if I had been of a ‘tempÉrament jaloux,’ I would have been very angry this night. Yes,—of a surety.”

She looked away, with an impulse to smile, and her heart was sufficiently eased of its burden to allow her to do so.

“Shall we go to the hotel now?” she asked after a moment.

“But you have not given me your hand?”

She put her hand in his, and he pressed it warmly, and then drew it within his arm as they turned to retrace their steps.

“I like better to walk alone,” she said, freeing herself.

“You are, perhaps, still angry?” he inquired anxiously.“No, but I can walk easier alone. And I want you to tell me now why you are not en route North, instead of staying here in Zurich.”

“But I have been North,” he said eagerly; “I have been this day to AÂrburg.”

“To AÂrburg!—Where is that?”

“Wait, I will make all plain to you,” he looked down upon her with the smile that always proclaimed a complete declaration of peace, “it all went like this: I see so plain that I make you to leave before you like, that I am glad to go away and so make you quite free. It came to my head like this,—I wanted to know something and by looking at your face and saying that I must go to Leipsic for some one there, I see all that I wish to know—”

“What did you see?” Rosina interrupted.

“I see plainly that you think it is some lady—”

“I did not think any such a thing!” she cried hotly.

He laughed and tossed his head.

“And so as I really should go to Leipsic I take the train and go, and then on the train I think why am I gone, and when I think again, I feel to leave the train at AÂrburg and telegraph, and when the answer come that you are still here, I feel very strongly to return at once, and so I do.”Rosina looked up with a smile, and, meeting his eyes, was suddenly overcome with a fear, vague and undefined, it is true, but not the less real, as to whether she had been wise in bringing about this most complete reconciliation.

“But you must still go to Leipsic?” she asked presently.

“Yes, after a little.”

“I wish you had gone when you started.”

“Why?”

“I am sure that you, who always understand, know why.”

“After a while will do,” he said easily, “when we are more tired of ourselves.” He paused. “Perhaps Thursday,” he suggested.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, in spite of herself.

“Why ‘oh’?”

“You are so positive that we shall be ennuyÉs by Thursday.”

“Yes,” he replied tranquilly, “we see so much of us together that it cannot last long so. Indeed it was for that that I was quite willing to go to-day, but on the train I begin to think otherwise, and my otherwise thoughts are become so strong that I find myself obliged to get down at AÂrburg.”

“And Leipsic?”

“Ah, for that you were so charming to send for me to-night and tell me how all has been I will tell you all the truth of Leipsic. It is there that my professor lives, the man who has teach me all that I know. He is to me the most dear out of all the world, for he gave to me my music, which is my life and my soul. And so you may understand that I speak truth indeed when I say that I have much interest in Leipsic.”

Rosina nodded, a sympathetic smile upon her lips.

“But we must go back to the hotel now,” she said sadly; “it is nearly ten o’clock.”

“And I may come to-morrow morning and we shall make a promenade together, n’est-ce pas?” he said eagerly; “it is so good, you and I together, these days. How can I make you know how I feel if you have not the same feeling,—the feeling that all the clouds and all the grass are singing, that all about us is perfect accord of sound, when we are only free to laugh and to talk as we may please.”

“But I ought to go on to my friends to-morrow,” she said, “you must know that.”

“But I will go there.”

“To Constance?”

“Yes, surely.”

“Oh, monsieur, that will not do at all!”

“Why will it not do at all?”“I don’t want you following me to Constance as you did to Zurich.”

“But I will not follow you; I will this time go on the same train with you.”

“Oh,” she said, in despair at the wide space between his views and those of the world in general, “you cannot do that, it would not look well at all.”

He stared at her in surprise.

“Who will it look unwell to?”

“Don’t say ‘unwell,’ say ‘not well.’”

“Not well; who will see it not well?”

“Ah,” she said, shaking her head, “there is no telling who would see only too well, and that is just the trouble.”

Von Ibn knit his black brows.

“I do not understand that just,” he said, after a moment. And then he reflected further and added, “You are of an oddness so peculiar. Why must the world matter? I am my world—nothing matters to me. Vous Êtes tortillante! you are afraid of stupid people and the tongues they have in them. That is your drollness. And anyway, I may go to Constance if I will. I may go anywhere if I will. You cannot prevent.”

She looked off across the lake.

“You ought to want to do what pleases me,” she suggested.“But I do not,” he said vigorously; “I want to do what pleases me, and you must want it too,—it will be much better for America when all the women do that. I observe much, and I observe especially in particular that. An American woman is like a queen—she does her own wish always, and is always unhappy; in Europe she does her husband’s wish, and it is much better for her and very good for him, and they are very happy, and I am coming to Constance.”

“But I have no husband,” said Rosina insistently.

“It will be very good if you learn to obey, and then you can have one again.”

“But I never mean to marry again.”

“I never mean to marry once, surtout pas une Americaine.”

She felt hurt at this speech and made no reply.

“But I mean to come to Constance.”

“Monsieur, you say that we see too much of one another; then why do you want to drive our acquaintance to the last limits of boredom?”

“But you do not bore me,” he said; and then after a long pause he added, “yet.”

She was forced to feel that the “y” in “yet” had probably begun with a capital.

“I want to go to the hotel now,” she said, in a tired tone.“Let us go and get an ice or some coffee first; yes?”

“Don’t keep saying ‘yes’ that way,” she cried impatiently; “you know how it frets me.”

He took her arm gently.

“You are indeed fatigued,” he said in a low tone, “I have troubled you much to-night. But I have trouble myself too. Did you see how unhappy I was, and was it so that you sent for me? Dites-moi franchement.”

“Yes,” she answered, with simplicity.

“And why did you care?”

“I didn’t want you to think what I knew that you were thinking.”

“Did you care that I was unhappy?”

“I cared that you thought that I would lie.”

“I was quite furious,” he meditated; “I came from the train so late and found that you were gone out. Je ne me fÂche jamais sans raison,—but I had good reason to-night.”

“You had no right to be angry over my going out, and I had just as much cause for displeasure over your returning as you had over my going.”

“No,” he said quickly, “for it was a compliment to you that I return, and no compliment at all to me that you stay after I am gone so as to visit the concert with monsieur.”

She laughed a little.“I hope that you will never behave so again; you were so unbearably rude that I was sorry to have sent for you. If I had not,” she asked, with real curiosity, “if I had not, would you have spoken to me after a while?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Je ne sais pas,” he replied with brevity; and then looking down at her with one of his irresistible smiles he added, “but I find it probable.”

She smiled in return, saying:

“Do undertake to never be angry like that again.”

“Again!” he said quickly and pointedly; “then I may come to Constance?”

Her mind was forced to take a sudden leap in order to rejoin his rapid deduction of effect from cause.

“No, no,” she cried hastily, “you must not think any more of Constance, you must go to Leipsic, just as you intended doing.”

“But you said—” he began.

“I meant, in the future, if we should ever chance to meet by accident.”

His brow darkened.

“Where?” he asked briefly.

“Who can tell,” she answered cheerfully; “people are always meeting again. See how that man of the steamer met me again to-day.”“But you have hear of him since you come?” he demanded, a fresh shade of suspicion in his tone.

“Never! Never a word until he came out of the Promenade and spoke to me this afternoon.”

Von Ibn thought about it frowningly for a little and then decided it was not worth his pains.

“I would not care to meet again as he,” he declared carelessly; “how he was sent to fetch me, and then he must go alone while we speak together, and then make that tale of a drive when there was no drive by the University, only a knowledge that he was much not wanted.”

“Do you think he was not really invited to go to drive?” she asked, opening her eyes widely.

“Of a certainty not. But he could see he was not wanted by us. When he came near, you really looked to weep.”

“Oh, no!” she cried, in great distress.

“Yes; it was just so.”

There was a pause while she pondered this new phase of herself, and after a while he went on:

“There is something that I do not understand. Why do you desire so much to speak to me to-night and then not desire me at Constance? Ça—je ne le comprends pas!”

“You do understand,” she said; “I know you do, and you know that I know that you do.”He looked at her for a few seconds and then asked:

“How long are you in Constance?”

“I do not know.”

“And then where do you go?”

“Probably to Munich.”

“With always that Molly?”

“I do not know whether they will go there or not. I believe they are going to Bayreuth and then to Berlin.”

He reflected for the space of half a block.

“I should really go to Leipsic,” he said at last.

“Then why don’t you go?” she retorted, more in answer to his tone than to his speech.

“I might perhaps go to Leipsic while you are in Constance,—perhaps.”

Heavy emphasis on the last “perhaps.”

“Oh, do!” she pleaded.

“Are you going to Bayreuth?”

“No, I don’t think so; they all come down to Munich right afterwards, you know.”

“But it is not the same in Munich. If you had been in Bayreuth you would know that. It is not the same at all. And ‘Parsifal’ is only there.”

He paused, but she made no answer.

“I am going to Bayreuth,” he said, “and then I shall come to Munich.”He made the last statement with an echo of absolute determination, but she continued to keep silence.

“In Munich I shall see you once more?”

“Perhaps.”

“Where will you be?”

She told him.

“And I shall be in the ‘Vierjahreszeiten’; why do you not come there?” he added.

“Because I love the pension with my whole heart,” she declared fervently; “I was there for an entire winter before my marriage; it is like home to me.”

He stopped, pulled out his note-book and carefully wrote down the name and address; as he put it up again, he remarked:

“That was droll, what you said to-night, that you would never marry again! Where do you get that idea?”

“From being married once.”

“I have it from never being married any, and I have it very strong. Have you it very strong?”

“Yes,” said Rosina decidedly, “very strong indeed.”

“Then when we know all is only nothing, why may I not come to Constance?”

“Because you can’t,” she said flatly, “I don’t want you to come.”“But I will be very good, and—”

“Yes,” she said interrupting; “I know, but to prevent further misunderstanding, I may just as well tell you that I want all my time in Constance for my other friend—”

They were at the door of the hotel, and she had her foot upon the lower step; he was just behind her, his hand beneath her elbow. She felt him give a violent start and drop his hand, and, looking around quickly to see what had happened, she forgot to end her sentence in the emotion caused by the sight of his face. A very fury of anger had surcharged his eyes and swelled the veins upon his temples.

“So!” he said, in a low tone that almost shook with intense and angry feeling, “that is why I may not come! He goes, does he? BÊte que je suis, that I did not comprehend before!”

Rosina stared at him, motionless, for the space of perhaps ten seconds, and then an utter contempt filled her, and every other consideration fled.

She ran up two or three steps, crossed the hall, and passed the Portier like a flash, flew up the one flight of stairs that led to her corridor, and broke in upon Ottillie with a lack of dignity such as she was rarely guilty of.

“Ottillie,” she exclaimed, panting under the weight of many mixed feelings, “I want to leave for Constance by the first train that goes in the morning. I don’t care if it is at six o’clock, I’ll get up. Ring and find out about everything, and then see to the bill and all. I must go!”

Ottillie stood there, and her clever fingers were already unfastening her mistress’ hat-pins.

“Madame may rest assured,” she said quietly, “all shall be as she desires.”

Meanwhile below stairs Von Ibn had entered the cafÉ, lit a cigarette and taken up one of the evening journals.

He appeared to look over the pages of the latter with an interest that was intent and unfeigned.

But was it so?