a lot of
work to be done downstairs before dinner."

"_Bien_, madame."

The man lingered in the room, arranging the chairs, and fussing about
the table, until he began to make Helen nervous. Peremptorily she said:

"You had better go, Francois; monsieur is waiting for you."

The valet bowed obsequiously, and left the room, shutting the door
carefully. Instead of proceeding immediately upstairs, he stopped for
a moment behind the closed door and listened intently. But, unable to
overhear the two women, who were conversing in an undertone, he hurried
upstairs toward his employer's bedroom. Arrived on the landing, he
went straight to the room, and, without stopping for the formality of
knocking, he turned the handle and went in.

CHAPTER XIII

Instead of finding his master resting from his fatigue, as Mrs. Traynor
had said, Francois discovered the new arrival very much awake. He was
sitting in front of Helen's bureau, eagerly perusing a bundle of
private letters tied with blue ribbon, which he had taken from a
drawer. As the door opened, he jumped up quickly, as if detected
committing a dishonorable action; but, when he saw who it was, his face
relaxed and he gave a grim nod of recognition.

"Lock the door!" he said in a whisper. "It won't do to have anyone
come in here now."

The valet turned the key, and, dropping entirely the obsequious manner
of the paid menial, threw himself carelessly into a chair. Taking from
his pocket a richly chased silver cigarette box, loot from former
houses where he had been employed, he struck a match on the highly
polished Circassian walnut chair, and proceeded to enjoy a smoke.

His companion looked at him anxiously.

"Well?" he demanded hoarsely. "Is it all right? What do they say?
Does anyone suspect?"

The Frenchman gracefully emitted from between his thin lips a thick
cloud of blue smoke, and broke into a laugh that, under the
circumstances, sounded strangely hollow and sinister.

"Suspect?" he chuckled. "Why should they suspect? Are you not ze same
man who went away--ze same build, ze same face, ze same voice, ze same
in every particular--except one. Zat you have not--_non_--you have not
ze education, ze fine manners, ze _savoir faire_ of monsieur." With
that expressive shrug of the shoulder, so characteristic of his nation,
he added: "_Mais que voulez vous_? We must do ze best we can."

His listener struck the brass bed-post savagely with his heav