young man
bowed awkwardly. "We came from Rennes this morning, and we lunched at
Kerlor's farm."

"Shall I order tea for them?" whispered Sonia.

"Gracious, no!" said Germaine sharply under her breath; then, louder,
she said to M. Charolais, "And what is your object in calling?"

"We asked to see your father," said M. Charolais, smiling with broad
amiability, while his eyes danced across her face, avoiding any meeting
with hers. "The footman told us that M. Gournay-Martin was out, but
that his daughter was at home. And we were unable, quite unable, to
deny ourselves the pleasure of meeting you." With that he sat down; and
his son followed his example.

Sonia and Germaine, taken aback, looked at one another in some
perplexity.

"What a fine chateau, papa!" said the young man.

"Yes, my boy; it's a very fine chateau," said M. Charolais, looking
round the hall with appreciative but greedy eyes.

There was a pause.

"It's a very fine chateau, young ladies," said M. Charolais.

"Yes; but excuse me, what is it you have called about?" said Germaine.

M. Charolais crossed his legs, leant back in his chair, thrust his
thumbs into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and said: "Well, we've come
about the advertisement we saw in the RENNES ADVERTISER, that M.
Gournay-Martin wanted to get rid of a motor-car; and my son is always
saying to me, 'I should like a motor-car which rushes the hills, papa.'
He means a sixty horse-power."

"We've got a sixty horse-power; but it's not for sale. My father is
even using it himself to-day," said Germaine.

"Perhaps it's the car we saw in the stable-yard," said M. Charolais.

"No; that's a thirty to forty horse-power. It belongs to me. But if
your son really loves rushing hills, as you say, we have a hundred
horse-power car which my father wants to get rid of. Wait; where's the
photograph of it, Sonia? It ought to be here somewhere."

The two girls rose, went to a table set against the wall beyond the
window, and began turning over the papers with which it was loaded in
the search for the photograph. They had barely turned their backs, when
the hand of young Charolais shot out as swiftly as the tongue of a
lizard catching a fly, closed round the silver statuette on the top of
the cabinet beside him, and flashed it into his jacket pocket.

Charolais was watching the two girls; one would have said that he had
eyes for nothing else, yet, without moving a muscle of his face, set in
its