nger a Paradise of snakes. We have
brought mankind into it, and we cannot turn our backs upon them to go
and begin a new life elsewhere."

He confronted his wife with a firm, concentrated gaze, which Mrs. Gould
returned with a brave assumption of fearlessness before she went out,
closing the door gently after her.

In contrast with the white glaring room the dimly lit corredor had a
restful mysteriousness of a forest glade, suggested by the stems and the
leaves of the plants ranged along the balustrade of the open side.
In the streaks of light falling through the open doors of the
reception-rooms, the blossoms, white and red and pale lilac, came out
vivid with the brilliance of flowers in a stream of sunshine; and Mrs.
Gould, passing on, had the vividness of a figure seen in the clear
patches of sun that chequer the gloom of open glades in the woods. The
stones in the rings upon her hand pressed to her forehead glittered in
the lamplight abreast of the door of the sala.

"Who's there?" she asked, in a startled voice. "Is that you, Basilio?"
She looked in, and saw Martin Decoud walking about, with an air of
having lost something, amongst the chairs and tables.

"Antonia has forgotten her fan in here," said Decoud, with a strange air
of distraction; "so I entered to see."

But, even as he said this, he had obviously given up his search, and
walked straight towards Mrs. Gould, who looked at him with doubtful
surprise.

"Senora," he began, in a low voice.

"What is it, Don Martin?" asked Mrs. Gould. And then she added, with a
slight laugh, "I am so nervous to-day," as if to explain the eagerness
of the question.

"Nothing immediately dangerous," said Decoud, who now could not conceal
his agitation. "Pray don't distress yourself. No, really, you must not
distress yourself."

Mrs. Gould, with her candid eyes very wide open, her lips composed into
a smile, was steadying herself with a little bejewelled hand against the
side of the door.

"Perhaps you don't know how alarming you are, appearing like this
unexpectedly--"

"I! Alarming!" he protested, sincerely vexed and surprised. "I assure
you that I am not in the least alarmed myself. A fan is lost; well,
it will be found again. But I don't think it is here. It is a fan I am
looking for. I cannot understand how Antonia could--Well! Have you found
it, amigo?"

"No, senor," said behind Mrs. Gould the soft voice of Basilio, the head
servant of the Casa. "I don't t