iselle, when it was finished.

My father raised his wine glass to the light.

"It is always a pleasure to listen to Mademoiselle."

"I fear," replied Mademoiselle, "that this will be the exception."

"Impossible," said my father, sipping his wine.

"All this morning I have tried to have a word with you," said
Mademoiselle, "but your time has been well taken up. I hoped to speak to
you instead of your son, but he failed to take my advice and remain
quiet. As I said before, you are both stubborn. Not that it has made much
difference. You still have the paper."

She caused, and surveyed him calmly.

"Is it not painful to continue the discussion?" my father inquired. "I
assure you I have not changed my mind since last evening, nor shall I
change it. Must I repeat that the affair of the paper is finished?"

"We shall see," said Mademoiselle.

"As Mademoiselle wishes," said my father.

"It has been six years since I first saw you in Paris," said
Mademoiselle. Her voice was softly musical, and somehow she was no longer
cold and forbidding. My father placed his wine glass on the table, and
seemingly a little disturbed, gave her his full attention.

"Six years," said Mademoiselle. "I have often thought of you since then.

"You have done me too much honor," said my father. "You always
have, my lady."

She only smiled and shook her head.

"You are the sort of man whom women think about, and the sort whom women
admire. Surely you know that without my telling you. A man with a past is
always more pleasant than one with a future. Do you know what I thought
when I saw you that evening? You remember, they were in the room,
whispering as usual, plotting and planning, and you were to have a boat
off the coast of Normandy. You and the Marquis had ridden from Bordeaux.
I thought, Captain, that you were the sort of man who could succeed in
anything you tried--yes, anything. Perhaps you know the Marquis thought
so too, and even today I believe we were nearly right. We saw you in
Brussels later, and in Holland, and then at Blanzy this year. I have
known of a dozen commissions you have performed without a single blunder.
Indeed, I know of only one thing in which you have definitely failed."

"Only one? Impossible," said my father.

"Yes, only one, and it seemed simple enough."

A touch of color had mounted to her cheeks, and she looked down at the
bare table.

"You have done your best, done your best in a hundred little wa