those sleeves of old
Venetian point would have eaten up the gains of any three of his most
prosperous months.

And Breitmann, dropping occasionally the ash of his cigarette on the
tray, he, too, was pondering. But his German strain did not make it so
easy for him as for Fitzgerald to give concrete form to his thought.
The star, as he saw it, had a nebulous appearance.

M. Ferraud chatted gaily. Usually a man who holds his audience is of
single purpose. The little Frenchman had two aims: one, to keep the
conversation on subjects of his own selection, and the other, to study
without being observed. Among one of his own tales (butterflies) he
told of a chase he once had made in the mountains of the Moors, in
Abyssinia. To illustrate it he took up one of the nets standing in the
corner. In his excitable way he was a very good actor. And when he
swooped down the net to demonstrate the end of the story, it caught on
a button on Breitmann's coat.

"Pardon!" said M. Ferraud, with a blithe laugh. "The butterfly I was
describing was not so big."

Breitmann freed himself amid general laughter. And with Laura's rising
the little after-dinner party became disorganized.

It was yet early; but perhaps she had some thought she wished to be
alone with. This consideration was the veriest bud in growth; still,
it was such that she desired the seclusion of her room. She swung
across her shoulders the sleepy Angora and wished the men good night.

The wire bell in the hall clock vibrated twice; two o'clock of the
morning. A streak of moon-shine fell aslant the floor and broke off
abruptly. Before the safe in the library stood Breitmann, a small tape
in his hand. For several minutes he contemplated somberly the nickel
combination wheel. He could open it for he knew the combination. To
open it would be the work of a moment. Why, then, did he hesitate?
Why not pluck it forth and disappear on the morrow? The admiral had
not made a copy, and without the key he might dig up Corsica till the
crack of doom. The flame on the taper crept down. The man gave a
quick movement to his shoulders; it was the shrug, not of impatience
but of resignation. He saw the lock through the haze of a conjured
face. He shut his eyes, but the vision remained. Slowly he drew his
fingers over the flame.

Yet, before the flame died wholly it touched two points of light in the
doorway, the round crystals of a pair of spectacles.

"Two souls