s an immense connection."

"You mean you believe you would be safe," he caught her up.

"_Mon dieu_! You make me feel as if I were on the stand. But yes,
quite safe."

"And you really believe that any one could ever forget you?"

"I am not as vain as you seem to think."

"You have every right to be. Suppose--suppose that something should
occur to rouse the suspicions of the Countess Zattiany's old friends
and they should start investigations in Vienna?"

"They would not see her--nor their emissaries. Dr. Steinach's
sanitarium is inviolate."

"Steinach--Steinach--where have I heard that name lately?"

Her eyes flew open, but she lowered the lids immediately. Her voice
shook slightly as she replied: "He is a very great doctor. He will
keep poor Mary's secret as long as she lives and nobody in Vienna would
doubt his word. Investigations would be useless."

"She is there then? I suppose you mean that she is dying of an
incurable disease or has lost her mind. But do not imagine that I care
to pry further into that. I never had the least idea that you had----
Oh, I don't know what to believe! . . . Won't you ever tell me?"

"I wonder! No, I think not! No! No!"

"There is something then?"

"Do you know why you still harp on that absurd idea that I am what I am
and still am not? Do you not know what it is--the simple explanation?"

"No, I do not."

"It is merely that European women, the women who have been raised in
the intrigues of courts and the artificialities of what we call 'the
World,' who learn the technique of gallantry as soon as they are
_lancee_, where men make a definite cult of women and women of men,
where sincerity in such an atmosphere is more baffling than subtlety
and guile--that is the reason your American girl is never understood by
foreign men--where naturalness is despised as gauche and art commands
homage, where, in short, the game is everything--that most aristocratic
and enthralling of all games--the game of chess, with men and women as
kings, queens, pawns. . . . There you have the whole explanation of my
apparent riddle. You have never met any one like me before."

"There are a good many women of your class here now."

"Yes, with avowed objects, is it not? And they do not happen to
possess the combination of qualities that commands your interest."

"That is true enough. Perhaps your explanation is the real one. There
is certainly something in it. Well, I'll go