You don't know how maddening
it is to have every step dogged by a woman who never was, never could
have been--and manifestly never will be--young! Wasn't that a divine
flash about the corbeille and the mayor? Miss Chantry will wait outside
half a day. As I said, she will be very tired of sitting in the
carriage. This is what you must do; smuggle me out another way; call
another carriage, and take me for a drive and wicked dinner. I don't
care what the consequences are, if you don't!"

I said I certainly didn't, and that I was ready to throw myself in the
Seine if that would amuse her; and she commended my improvement in
manners. We had a drive, with a sympathetic coachman; and a wicked
dinner in a suburb, which would have been quite harmless on American
ground. The child was as full of spirits as she had been the night she
mounted the cabin chimney. But I realized that more of my gold pieces
were slipping away, and I had not seen Doctor Chantry.

"We were going to the mayor's," she maintained, when reproached. "My
father would have joined us if he had been there. He would certainly
have joined us if he had seen me alone with you. Nothing is so easy as
civil marriage under the Empire. Of course the religious sacrament
follows, when people want it, and if it is celebrated in the church of
the Capuchins--or any other church--five minutes before midnight, it
will make all Paris talk! Every word I said was true!"

"But Doctor Chantry believed something entirely different."

"You can't do anything for the English," said Annabel. "Next week he
will say haw-haw."

Doctor Chantry could not be found when we returned to her father's
hotel. She gave me her fingers to kiss in good-bye, and told me I was
less doleful.

"We thought you were the Marquis du Plessy's son, Lazarre. I always have
believed that story the Holland woman told in the cabin, about your rank
being superior to mine. Don't be cut up about Madame de Ferrier! You may
have to go to Russia again for her, but you'll get her!"

The witch shook the mist of hair at the sides of her pretty aquiline
face, blew a kiss at me, and ran up the staircase and out of my life.
After waiting long for Doctor Chantry I hurried to Skenedonk and sent
him with instructions to find my master and conclude our affair before
coming back.

The Indian silently entered the Du Plessy hotel after dusk, crestfallen
and suspicious. He brought nothing but a letter, left in Doctor
Chantry's