the girl drew away from him with suspicion in her
eyes, and something else, alertly defiant. Then she put out her hands to
his arm.

"You may be what you like, dear Ste. Marie," she said, "and say what you
like. I will take it all--and swallow it alive--good as gold. What are
you going to do to me?"

"I've always been fair with you, haven't I?" he urged. "I've had
disagreeable things to say or do, but--you knew always that I liked you
and--where my sympathies were."

"Always! Always, mon cher!" she cried. "I trusted you always in
everything. And there is no one else I trust. No one! No one!--Ste.
Marie!"

"What then?" he asked.

"Ste. Marie," she said, "why did you never fall in love with me, as the
other men did?"

"I wonder!" said he. "I don't know. Upon my word, I really don't know."

He was so serious about it that the girl burst into a shriek of
laughter. And in the end he laughed, too.

"I expect it was because I liked you too well," he said, at last. "But
come! We're forgetting my lecture. Listen to your grandpere Ste. Marie!
I have heard--certain things--rumors--what you will. Perhaps they are
foolish lies, and I hope they are. But if not, if the fear I saw in
Stewart's face when you came here to-night, was--not without cause, let
me beg you to have a care. You're much too savage, my dear child. Don't
be so foolish as to--well, turn comedy into the other thing. In the
first place, it's not worth while, and, in the second place, it recoils
always. Revenge may be sweet. I don't know. But nowadays, with police
courts and all that, it entails much more subsequent annoyance than it
is worth. Be wise, Olga!"

"Some things, Ste. Marie," said the golden lady, "are worth all the
consequences that may follow them."

She watched Captain Stewart across the room, where he stood chatting
with a little group of people, and her beautiful face was as hard as
marble and her eyes were as dark as a stormy night, and her mouth, for
an instant, was almost like an animal's mouth--cruel and relentless.

Ste. Marie saw, and he began to be a bit alarmed in good earnest. In his
warning he had spoken rather more seriously than he felt the occasion
demanded, but he began at last to wonder if the occasion was not in
reality very serious, indeed. He was sure, of course, that Olga Nilssen
had come here on this evening to annoy Captain Stewart in some fashion.
As he put it to himself, she probably meant to "make a row," and he
w