it is
to the death. I have the honour to salute you!"--he bowed over her
hand and kissed it. "Monsieur." He bowed to me with the profundity of a
hidalgo, and trotted magnificently out of the room.

It was all so sudden that it took my breath away.

"Well I'm----" I didn't know what I was, so I stopped. Lola Brandt broke
into low laughter at my astonishment.

"That's Anastasius's way," she explained.

"But the little man surely isn't going to leave his cats and start on a
wild-goose chase over Europe to find your husband?"

"He thinks he is, but I shan't let him."

"I hope you won't," said I. "And will you tell me why you made so
hot-headed a person your confidant?"

I confess that I was wrathful. Here had I been using the wiles of a
Balkan chancery to bring the lady to my way of thinking, and here was
she, to my face, making a joke of it with this caricature of a Paladin.

"My dearest friend," she replied earnestly, "don't be angry with me.
I've given the poor little man something to think of besides the death
of his cat. It will do him good. And why shouldn't I tell him? He's a
dear old friend, and in his way was so good to me when I was unhappy. He
knows all about my married life. You may think he's half-witted; but he
isn't. In ordinary business dealings he's as shrewd as they make 'em.
The manager who beats Anastasius over a contract is yet to be born."

By some extraordinary process of the contortionist's art, she curled
herself out of her chair on to the hearthrug and knelt before me, her
hands clasped on my knee.

"You're not angry with me, are you?" she asked in her rich contralto.

I took both her hands, rose, and assisted her to rise. I was not going
to be mesmerised again.

"Of course not," I laughed. Indeed my wrath had fallen from me.

Her bosom heaved with a sigh. "I'm so glad," she said. Her breath fanned
my cheek. It was aromatic, intoxicating. Her lips are ripe and full.

"You had better find your husband as soon as possible," said I.

"Do you think so?" she asked.

"Yes, I do. And it strikes me I had better go and find him myself."

She started. "You?"

"Yes," I said. "The Chasseurs d'Afrique are probably in Africa, and the
doctors have ordered me to winter in a hot climate, and I shall go on
writing a million letters a day if I stay here, which will kill me off
in no time with brain fag and writer's cramp. Your husband will be what
the newspapers call an objective. Good-bye!" sai