igarette. She spoke of her husband moreover; and
complained that he should have to go and fight in some one else's
quarrel. Why could not ladies who went to the tables at Monte Carlo keep
their temper, that a perfectly neutral third person should be summoned
to fight a duel on behalf of one of them?

"You are going to rejoin him, then, madame?" said Calabressa.

"Not at all," she said, laughing. "I have my own affairs."

After some time, she said, with quite a humorous smile,

"My dear sir, I hope I do not keep you from sleeping. But you are
puzzled about me; you think you have seen me before, but cannot tell
where."

"There you are perfectly right, madame."

"Think of the day before yesterday. You were crossing in the steamer.
You were so good as to suggest to a lady on board that nearer the centre
vessel would be safer for her--"

He stared at her again. Could this be the same lady who, on the day that
he crossed, was seated right at the stern of the steamer her brown hair
flying about with the wind, her white teeth flashing as she laughed and
joked with the sailors, her eyes full of life and merriment as she
pitched up and down? Calabressa, before the paroxysms of his woe
overtook him, had had the bravery to go and remonstrate with this young
lady, and to tell her she would be more comfortable nearer the middle of
the boat; but she had laughingly told him she was a sailor's daughter,
and was not afraid of the sea. Well, this handsome young lady opposite
certainly laughed like that other, but still--

"Oh," she said, "do I puzzle you with such a simple thing? My hair was
brown the day before yesterday, it is black to-day; is that a sufficient
disguise? _Pardieu_, when I went to a music-hall in London that same
night to see some stupid nonsense--bah! such stupid nonsense I have
never seen in the world--I went dressed as a man. Only for exercise, you
perceive: one does not need disguises in London."

Calabressa was becoming more and more mystified, and she saw it, and her
amusement increased.

"Come, my friend," she said, "you cannot deny that you also are
political?"

"I, madame?" said Calabressa, with great innocence.

"Oh yes. And you are not on the side of the big battalions, eh?"

"I declare to you, madame--"

She glanced at Reitzei.

"Your friend sleeps sound. Come, shall I tell you something? You did not
say a word, for example, when you stepped on shore, to a gentleman in a
big cloak who had a