r fan."

"You do not hold it right--there--"

"Do you feel the breeze? Your fan is perfumed--or is it the
lilies on the terrace? They are dancing again; must we go back?"

She looked out into the dazzling moonlight of Lorraine; a
nightingale began singing far away in the distant swamp; a bat
darted by, turned, rose, dipped, and vanished.

"They are dancing," she repeated.

"Must we go?"

"No."

In the stillness the nightingale grew bolder; the woods seemed
saturated with song.

"My father is restless; I must return soon," she said, with a
little sigh. "I shall go in presently and make my adieux. I wish
you might know my father. Will you? He would like you. He speaks
to few people except me. I know all that he thinks, all that he
dreams of. I know also all that he has done, all that he is
doing, all that he will do--God willing. Why is it I tell you
this? Ma foi, I do not know. And I am going to tell you more.
Have you heard that my father has made a balloon?"

"Yes--everybody speaks of it," he answered, gravely.

"But--ah, this is the wonderful part!--he has made a balloon that
can be inflated in five seconds! Think! All other balloons
require a long, long while, and many tubes; and one must take
them to a usine de gaz. My father's balloon needs no gas--that
is, it needs no common illuminating gas."

"A montgolfier?" asked Marche, curiously.

"Oh, pooh! The idea! No, it is like other balloons, except
that--well--there is needed merely a handful of silvery dust--to
which you touch a drop of water--piff! puff! c'est fini! The
balloon is filled."

"And what is this silvery dust?" he asked, laughing.

"Voila! Do you not wish you knew? I--Lorraine de Nesville--I know!
It is a secret. If the time ever should come--in case of war, for
instance--my father will give the secret to France--freely--without
recompense--a secret that all the nations of Europe could not buy!
Now, don't you wish you knew, monsieur?"

"And you know?"

"Yes," she said, with a tantalizing toss of her head.

"Then you'd better look out," he laughed; "if European nations
get wind of this they might kidnap you."

"They know it already," she said, seriously. "Austria, Spain,
Portugal, and Russia have sent agents to my father--as though he
bought and sold the welfare of his country!"

"And that map-making fellow this morning--do you suppose he might
have been hanging about after that sort of thing--trying to pry
and pick up some scr