ften taken for an Englishman and was inclined to
be proud of the fact.

"You have rested well, I trust, Mademoiselle?" he asked, bowing low
over her fingers.

"Excellently," replied Louise. "Will you not take me in to luncheon?
The car is full of men and I am not comfortable alone. It is not
pleasant, either, to eat with one's maids."

"I am honored," he declared. "Will you permit me for one moment?"

He turned and spoke to his companions. Louise saw at once that they
were protesting vigorously. She saw, too, that Von Behrling only
became more obstinate and that he was very nearly angry. She moved
a few steps on down the corridor, and stood looking out of the
window. He joined her almost immediately.

"Come," he said, "they will be serving luncheon in five minutes.
We will go and take a good place."

"Your friends, I am afraid," she remarked, "did not like your
leaving them. They are not very gallant."

"To me it is indifferent," he answered, fiercely twirling his
moustache. "Streuss there is an old fool. He has always some
fancy in his brain."

Louise raised her eyebrows slightly.

"You are your own master, I suppose," she said. "The Baron is
used to command his policemen, and sometimes he forgets. There are
many people who find him too autocratic."

"He means well," Von Behrling asserted. "It is his manner only
which is against him."

They found a comfortable table, and she sat smiling at him across
the white cloth.

"If this is not Sachers," she said, "it is at least more pleasant
than lunching alone."

"I can assure you, Mademoiselle," he declared, with a vigorous
twirl of his moustache, "that I find it so."

"Always gallant," she murmured. "Tell me, is it true of you--the
news which I heard just before I left Vienna? Have you really
resigned your post with the Chancellor?"

"You heard that?" he asked slowly.

She hesitated for a moment.

"I heard something of the sort," she admitted. "To be quite candid
with you, I think it was reported that the Chancellor was making a
change on his own account."

"So that is what they say, is it? What do they know about it--these
gossipers?"

"You were not allowed at the conference yesterday," she remarked.

"No one was allowed there, so that goes for nothing."

"Ah! well," she said, looking meditatively out upon the landscape,
"a year ago the thought of that conference would have driven me
wild. I should not have been content until