d particularly think it so.

"Ma foi! it is," he insisted heartily. "I had the most disturbing
visions of your wandering elsewhere. I declare I saw my dear Baron
and his daughter immured in some pestilent Lowland burgh town, moping
mountain creatures among narrow streets, in dreary tenements, with
glimpse of neither sea nor tree to compensate them for pleasures lost.
But France!--Mademoiselle has given me an exquisite delight. For, figure
you! France is not so vast that friends may not meet there often--if
one were so greatly privileged--and every roadway in it leads to
Dunkerque--and--I should dearly love to think of you as, so to speak,
in my neighbourhood, among the people I esteem. It is not your devoted
Highlands, this France, Mademoiselle Olivia, but believe me, it has
its charms. You shall not have the mountains--there I am distressed for
you--nor yet the rivulets; and you must dispense with the mists; but
there is ever the consolation of an air that is like wine in the head,
and a frequent sun. France, indeed! _Je suis ravi!_ I little thought
when I heard of this end to the old home of you that you were to make
the new one in my country; how could I guess when anticipating my
farewell to the Highlands of Scotland that I should have such good
company to the shore of France?"

"Then you are returning now?" asked Olivia, her affectation of
indifference just a little overdone.

In very truth he had not, as yet, so determined; but he boldly lied like
a lover.

"'Twas my intention to return at once. I cannot forgive myself for being
so long away from my friends there."

Olivia had a bodice of paduasoy that came low upon her shoulders and
showed a spray of jasmine in the cleft of her rounded breasts, which
heaved with what Count Victor could not but perceive was some emotion.
Her eyes were like a stag's, and they evaded him; she trifled with the
pocket of her gown.

"Ah," she said, "it is natural that you should weary here in this sorry
place and wish to get back to the people you know. There will be many
that have missed you."

He laughed at that.

"A few--a few, perhaps," he said. "Clancarty has doubtless often sought
me vainly for the trivial coin: some butterflies in the _coulisse_ of
the playhouse will have missed my pouncet-box; but I swear there are
few in Paris who would be inconsolable if Victor de Montaiglon never set
foot on the _trottoir_ again. It is my misfortune, mademoiselle, to have
a multit