ger she started with a little "Oh!" of surprise.

"I beg your pardon."

Mr. Smith's angry face wreathed itself in smiles.

"This, my darling, is M. Poiron, the eminent Paris expert, who has been
good enough to come and give us his opinion on the picture."

M. Poiron bowed. Aristide advanced.

"Mademoiselle, your appearance is like a mirage in a desert."

She smiled indulgently and turned to her father. "I've been wondering
what had become of you. Harry has been here for the last half-hour."

"Bring him in, dear child, bring him in!" said Mr. Smith, with all the
heartiness of the fine old English gentleman. "Our good friends are
dying to meet him."

The girl flickered out of the room like a sunbeam (the phrase is
Aristide's), and the three precious rascals put their heads together in
a hurried and earnest colloquy. Presently Miss Christabel returned, and
with her came the Honourable Harry Ralston, a tall, soldierly fellow,
with close-cropped fair curly hair and a fair moustache, and frank blue
eyes that, even in Parliament, had seen no harm in his fellow-creatures.
Aristide's magical vision caught him wincing ever so little at Mr.
Smith's effusive greeting and overdone introductions. He shook Aristide
warmly by the hand.

"You have a beauty there, Baron, a perfect beauty," said he, with the
insane ingenuousness of youth. "I wonder how you can manage to part with
it."

"_Ma foi_," said Aristide, with his back against the end of the
dining-table and gazing at the masterpiece. "I have so many at the
Chateau de Mireilles. When one begins to collect, you know--and when
one's grandfather and father have had also the divine mania----"

"You were saying, M. le Baron," said M. Poiron of Paris, "that your
respected grandfather bought this direct from Corot himself."

"A commission," said Aristide. "My grandfather was a patron of Corot."

"Do you like it, dear?" asked the Honourable Harry.

"Oh, yes!" replied the girl, fervently. "It is beautiful. I feel like
Harry about it." She turned to Aristide. "How can you part with it? Were
you really in earnest when you said you would like me to come and see
your collection?"

"For me," said Aristide, "it would be a visit of enchantment."

"You must take me, then," she whispered to Harry. "The Baron has been
telling us about his lovely old chateau."

"Will you come, monsieur?" asked Aristide.

"Since I'm going to rob you of your picture," said the young man, with
smili