o the invitation to
precede him she readily responded, and, with a bow to the Seneschal, she
began to walk across the apartment.

Garnache's eyes, narrowing slightly, followed her, like points of steel.
Suddenly he shot a disturbing glance at Tressan's face, and the corner
of his wild-cat mustachios twitched. He stood erect, and called her very
sharply.

"Mademoiselle!"

She stopped, and turned to face him, an incredible shyness seeming to
cause her to avoid his gaze.

"You have, no doubt, Monsieur le Seneschal's word for my identity. But
I think it is as well that you should satisfy yourself. Before placing
yourself entirely in my care, as you are about to do, you would be well
advised to assure yourself, that I am indeed Her Majesty's emissary.
Will you be good enough to glance at this?"

He drew forth as he spoke the letter in the queen's own hand, turned
it upside down, and so presented it to her. The Seneschal looked on
stolidly, a few paces distant.

"But certainly, mademoiselle, assure yourself that this gentleman is no
other than I have told you."

Thus enjoined, she took the letter; for a second her eyes met Garnache's
glittering gaze, and she shivered. Then she bent her glance to the
writing, and studied it a moment, what time the man from Paris watched
her closely.

Presently she handed it back to him.

"Thank you, monsieur," was all she said.

"You are satisfied that it is in order, mademoiselle?" he inquired, and
a note of mockery too subtle for her or the Seneschal ran through his
question.

"I am quite satisfied."

Garnache turned to Tressan. His eyes were smiling, but unpleasantly,
and in his voice when he spoke there was something akin to the distant
rumble that heralds an approaching storm.

"Mademoiselle," said he, "has received an eccentric education."

"Eh?" quoth Tressan, perplexed.

"I have heard tell, monsieur, of a people somewhere in the East who
read and write from right to left; but never yet have I heard tell of
any--particularly in France--so oddly schooled as to do their reading
upside down."

Tressan caught the drift of the other's meaning. He paled a little,
and sucked his lip, his eyes wandering to the girl, who stood in stolid
inapprehension of what was being said.

"Did she do that?" said he, and he scarcely knew what he was saying;
all that he realized was that it urged him to explain this thing.
"Mademoiselle's education has been neglected--a by no means unco