don't know. I
suppose they could do it easily enough. If I were you I should set to
work quite independently of him."

"Yes," said Ste. Marie, in an absent tone. "Oh yes, I shall do that, you
may be sure." He gave a sudden smile. "He's a queer type, this Captain
Stewart. He begins to interest me very much. I had never suspected this
side of him, though I remember now that I once saw him coming out of a
milliner's shop. He looks rather an ascetic--rather donnish, don't you
think? I remember that he talked to me one day quite pathetically about
feeling his age and about liking young people round him. He's an odd
character. Fancy him mixed up in an affair with Olga Nilssen! Or,
rather, fancy her involved in an affair with him! What can she have seen
in him? She's not mercenary, you know--at least, she used not to be."

"Ah! there," said Baron de Vries, "you enter upon a terra incognita. No
one can say what a woman sees in this man or in that. It's beyond our
ken."

He rose to take his leave, and Ste. Marie went with him to the door.

"I've been asked to a sort of party at Stewart's rooms this week," Ste.
Marie said. "I don't know whether I shall go or not. Probably not. I
suppose I shouldn't find Olga Nilssen there?"

"Well, no," said the Belgian, laughing. "No, I hardly think so.
Good-bye! Think over what I've told you. Good-bye!"

He went away down the stair, and Ste. Marie returned to his unpacking.

Nothing more of consequence occurred in the next few days. Hartley had
unearthed a somewhat shabby adventurer who swore to having seen the
Irishman O'Hara in Paris within a month, but it was by no means certain
that this being did not merely affirm what he believed to be desired of
him, and in any case the information was of no especial value, since it
was O'Hara's present whereabouts that was the point at issue. So it came
to Thursday evening. Ste. Marie received a note from Captain Stewart
during the day, reminding him that he was to come to the rue du Faubourg
St. Honore that evening, and asking him to come early, at ten or
thereabouts, so that the two could have a comfortable chat before any
one else turned up. Ste. Marie had about decided not to go at all, but
the courtesy of this special invitation from Miss Benham's uncle made it
rather impossible for him to stay away. He tried to persuade Hartley to
follow him on later in the evening, but that gentleman flatly refused
and went away to dine with some English