The following morning, at breakfast, a servant announced that Sir John Oglethorpe was taking his breakfast in his room, and that there was no need to keep anything in reserve for him. It was stated, however, that Sir John was in no way indisposed, and that he would join the party at lunch.

He seated himself in his usual place, placid and fresh as ever; but, unharmed as he was physically, it was evident to all the company that he was suffering from some mental discomposure. Miss Macdonnell, with a frank curiosity which might have been trying in any one else, asked him point-blank the reason of his absence from the meal for which, in spite of his partiality for French cookery, he had a true Englishman's devotion.

"I feel I owe the company some apology for my apparent churlishness," he said; "but the fact is, that I have received some very harrowing, but at the same time very interesting, news this morning. I think I told you the other day how the vacancy in my kitchen has led up to a very real tragedy, and that the abhorred Fury was already hovering terribly near the head of poor Narcisse. Well, I have just received from a friend in Paris journals containing a full account of the trial of Narcisse and of his fair accomplice. The worst has come to pass, and Narcisse has been doomed to sneeze into the basket like a mere aristocrat or politician during the Terror I was greatly upset by this news, but I was interested, and in a measure consoled, to find an enclosure amongst the other papers, an envelope addressed to me in the handwriting of the condemned man. This voix d'outre tombe, I rejoice to say, confides to me the secret of that incomparable sauce of his, a secret which I feared might be buried with Narcisse in the prison ditch."

The Marchesa sighed as she listened. The recipe of the sauce was safe indeed, but she knew by experience how wide might be the gulf between the actual work of an artist and the product of another hand guided by his counsels, let the hand be ever so dexterous, and the counsels ever so clear. "Will it be too much," she said, "to ask you to give us the details of this painful tragedy?"

"It will not," Sir John replied reflectively. "The last words of many a so-called genius have been enshrined in literature: probably no one will ever know the parting objurgation of Narcisse. I will endeavour, however, to give you some notion as to what occurred, from the budget I have just read. I fear the tragedy was a squalid one. Madame, the victim, was elderly, unattractive in person, exacting in temper, and the owner of considerable wealth—at least, this is what came out at the trial. It was one of those tangles in which a fatal denouement is inevitable; and, if this had not come through Mademoiselle Sidonie, it would have come through somebody else. The lovers plotted to remove madame by first drugging her, then breaking her skull with the wood chopper, and then pitching her downstairs so as to produce the impression that she had met her death in this fashion. But either the arm of Mademoiselle Sidonie—who was told off to do the hammering—was unskilled in such work, or the opiate was too weak, for the victim began to shriek before she gave up the ghost. Detection seemed imminent, so Narcisse, in whom the quality of discretion was evidently predominant, bolted at once and got out of the country. But the facts were absolutely clear. The victim lived long enough to depose that Mademoiselle Sidonie attacked her with the wood chopper, while Narcisse watched the door. The advocate of Narcisse did his work like a man. He shed the regulation measure of tears; he drew graphic pictures of the innocent youth of Narcisse, of his rise to eminence, and of his filial piety as evidenced by the frequent despatch of money and comestibles to his venerable mother, who was still living near Bourges. Once a year, too, this incomparable artist found time to renew his youth by a sojourn in the simple cottage which saw his birth, and by embracing the giver of his life. Was it possible that a man who treated one woman with such devotion and reverence could take the life of another? He adduced various and picturesque reasons to show that such an event must be impossible, but the jury took the opposite view. Some one had to be guillotined, and the intelligent jury decided that Paris could spare Narcisse better than it could spare Mademoiselle Sidonie. I fear the fact that he had deigned to sell his services to a brutal islander may have helped them to come to this conclusion, but there were other and more weighty reasons. Of the supreme excellence of Narcisse as an artist the jury knew nothing, so they let him go hang—or worse—but of Mademoiselle Sidonie they knew a good deal, and their knowledge, I believe, is shared by certain English visitors to Paris. She is one of the attractions of the Fantasies d'Arcadie, and her latest song, Bonjour Coco, is sung and whistled in every capital of Europe; so the jury, thrusting aside as mere pedantry the evidence of facts, set to work to find some verdict which would not eclipse the gaiety of La Ville Lumiere by cutting short the career of Mademoiselle Sidonie. The art of the chef appealed to only a few, and he dies a mute, but by no means inglorious martyr: the art of the chanteuse appeals to the million, the voice of the many carries the day, and Narcisse must die."

"It is a revolting story," said Mrs. Gradinger, "and one possible only in a corrupted and corrupting society. It is wonderful, as Sir John remarks, how the conquering streams of tendency manifest themselves even in an affair like this. Ours is a democratic age, and the wants and desires of the many, who find delight in this woman's singing, override the whims of the pampered few, the employers of such costly luxuries as men cooks."

"You see you are a mere worm, Sir John," laughed Miss Macdonnell, "and you had better lay out your length to be trampled on."

"Yes, I have long foreseen our fate, we who happen to possess what our poor brother hankers after. Well, perhaps I may take up the worm's role at once and 'turn', that is, burn the recipe of Narcisse."

"O Sir John, Sir John," cried Mrs. Sinclair "any such burning would remind me irresistibly of Mr. Mantalini's attempts at suicide. There would be an accurate copy in your pocket-book, and besides this you would probably have learnt off the recipe by heart."

"Yes, we know our Sir John better than that, don't we?" said the Marchesa; "but, joking apart, Sir John, you might let me have the recipe at once. It would go admirably with one of our lunch dishes for to-morrow."

But on the subject of the sauce, Sir John—like the younger Mr. Smallweed on the subject of gravy—was adamant. The wound caused by the loss of Narcisse was, he declared, yet too recent: the very odour of the sauce would provoke a thousand agonising regrets. And then the hideous injustice of it all: Narcisse the artist, comparatively innocent (for to artists a certain latitude must be allowed), to moulder in quicklime, and this greedy, sordid murderess to go on ogling and posturing with superadded popularity before an idiot crowd unable to distinguish a Remoulade from a Ravigotte! "No, my dear Marchesa," he said, "the secret of Narcisse must be kept a little longer, for, to tell the truth, I have an idea. I remember that ere this fortunes have been made out of sauces, and if this sauce be properly handled and put before the public, it may counteract my falling, or rather disappearing rents. If only I could hit upon a fetching name, and find twenty thousand pounds to spend in advertising, I might be able once more to live on my acres."

"Oh, surely we shall be able to find you a name between us," said Mrs. Wilding; "money, and things of that sort are to be procured in the city, I believe; and I daresay Mr. Van der Roet will design a pretty label for the sauce bottles."