astonished me. I murmured:

"Indeed!"

"In Paris--Mrs. Etchingham Granger," he said.

I said, "Oh, yes."

Miss Churchill came to the rescue.

"The Duc de Mersch means our friend, your aunt," she explained. I had an
unpleasant sensation. Through fronds of asparagus fern I caught the eyes
of Gurnard fixed upon me as though something had drawn his attention. I
returned his glance, tried to make his face out. It had nothing
distinctive in its half-hidden pallid oval; nothing that one could seize
upon. But it gave the impression of never having seen the light of day,
of never having had the sun upon it. But the conviction that I had
aroused his attention disturbed me. What could the man know about me? I
seemed to feel his glance bore through the irises of my eyes into the
back of my skull. The feeling was almost physical; it was as if some
incredibly concentrant reflector had been turned upon me. Then the
eyelids dropped over the metallic rings beneath them. Miss Churchill
continued to explain.

"She has started a sort of _Salon des Causes Perdues_ in the Faubourg
Saint Germain." She was recording the vagaries of my aunt. The Duc
laughed.

"Ah, yes," he said, "what a menagerie--Carlists, and Orleanists, and
Papal Blacks. I wonder she has not held a bazaar in favour of your White
Rose League."

"Ah, yes," I echoed, "I have heard that she was mad about the divine
right of kings."

Miss Churchill rose, as ladies rise at the end of a dinner. I followed
her out of the room, in obedience to some minute signal.

We were on the best of terms--we two. She mothered me, as she mothered
everybody not beneath contempt or above a certain age. I liked her
immensely--the masterful, absorbed, brown lady. As she walked up the
stairs, she said, in half apology for withdrawing me.

"They've got things to talk about."

"Why, yes," I answered; "I suppose the railway matter has to be
settled." She looked at me fixedly.

"You--you mustn't talk," she warned.

"Oh," I answered, "I'm not indiscreet--not essentially."

The other three were somewhat tardy in making their drawing-room
appearance. I had a sense of them, leaning their heads together over the
edges of the table. In the interim a rather fierce political dowager
convoyed two well-controlled, blond daughters into the room. There was a
continual coming and going of such people in the house; they did with
Miss Churchill social business of some kind, arranged electoral
raree