hen we remember that he is an Englishman.

"Ah, Monsieur Chauvelin," added Marguerite, looking almost with defiance
across at the placid, sphinx-like face of the Frenchman, "His Royal
Highness should add that we ladies think of him as of a hero of old . . .
we worship him . . . we wear his badge . . . we tremble for him when he
is in danger, and exult with him in the hour of his victory."

Chauvelin did no more than bow placidly both to the Prince and to
Marguerite; he felt that both speeches were intended--each in their
way--to convey contempt or defiance. The pleasure-loving, idle Prince he
despised: the beautiful woman, who in her golden hair wore a spray of
small red flowers composed of rubies and diamonds--her he held in the
hollow of his hand: he could afford to remain silent and to wait events.

A long, jovial, inane laugh broke the sudden silence which had fallen
over everyone. "And we poor husbands," came in slow, affected accents
from gorgeous Sir Percy, "we have to stand by . . . while they worship a
demmed shadow."

Everyone laughed--the Prince more loudly than anyone. The tension
of subdued excitement was relieved, and the next moment everyone was
laughing and chatting merrily as the gay crowd broke up and dispersed in
the adjoining rooms.

CHAPTER XII THE SCRAP OF PAPER

Marguerite suffered intensely. Though she laughed and chatted, though
she was more admired, more surrounded, more FETED than any woman there,
she felt like one condemned to death, living her last day upon this
earth.

Her nerves were in a state of painful tension, which had increased a
hundredfold during that brief hour which she had spent in her husband's
company, between the opera and the ball. The short ray of hope--that she
might find in this good-natured, lazy individual a valuable friend and
adviser--had vanished as quickly as it had come, the moment she found
herself alone with him. The same feeling of good-humoured contempt which
one feels for an animal or a faithful servant, made her turn away with
a smile from the man who should have been her moral support in this
heart-rending crisis through which she was passing: who should have been
her cool-headed adviser, when feminine sympathy and sentiment tossed her
hither and thither, between her love for her brother, who was far away
and in mortal peril, and horror of the awful service which Chauvelin had
exacted from her, in exchange for Armand's safety.

There he st