t is a very good evening,
indeed. Very good! Where have you been, and who were there?"

"A dinner-party at the De Saulnes'," said Miss Benham, making herself
comfortable on the side of the great bed. "It's a very pleasant place.
Marian is, of course, a dear, and they're quite English and
unceremonious. You can talk to your neighbor at dinner instead of
addressing the house from a platform, as it were. French dinner-parties
make me nervous."

Old David gave a little growling laugh.

"French dinner-parties at least keep people up to the mark in the art of
conversation," said he. "But that is a lost art, anyhow, nowadays, so I
suppose one might as well be quite informal and have done with it. Who
were there?"

"Oh, well"--she considered, "no one, I should think, who would interest
you. Rather an indifferent set. Pleasant people, but not inspiring. The
Marquis had some young relative or connection who was quite odious and
made the most surprising noises over his food. I met a new man whom I
think I am going to like very much, indeed. He wouldn't interest you,
because he doesn't mean anything in particular, and of course he
oughtn't to interest me for the same reason. He's just an idle, pleasant
young man, but--he has great charm--very great charm. His name is Ste.
Marie. Baron de Vries seems very fond of him, which surprised me,
rather."

"Ste. Marie!" exclaimed the old gentleman, in obvious astonishment.
"Ste. Marie de Mont Perdu?"

"Yes," she said. "Yes, that is the name, I believe. You know him, then?
I wonder he didn't mention it."

"I knew his father," said old David. "And his grandfather, for that
matter. They're Gascon, I think, or Bearnais; but this boy's mother will
have been Irish, unless his father married again.

"So you've been meeting a Ste. Marie, have you?--and finding that he has
great charm?" The old gentleman broke into one of his growling laughs,
and reached for a long black cigar, which he lighted, eying his
granddaughter the while over the flaring match. "Well," he said, when
the cigar was drawing, "they all have had charm. I should think there
has never been a Ste. Marie without it. They're a sort of embodiment of
romance, that family. This boy's great-grandfather lost his life
defending a castle against a horde of peasants in 1799; his grandfather
was killed in the French campaign in Mexico in '39--at Vera Cruz it was,
I think; and his father died in a filibustering expedition ten years
ag