swift movement and grabbed
them first, the other man's hand on his.

"_Canaille!_"

He dashed his free hand into the adventurer's face. The man staggered
back. Aristide pocketed the precious papers. The Count scowled at him
for an undecided second, and then bolted from the room.

"Whew!" said Aristide, sinking into his chair and wiping his face. "That
was a narrow escape."

He looked at his watch. It was only ten o'clock. It had seemed as if his
game with Lussigny had lasted for hours. He could not go to bed and
stood confronted with anti-climax. After a while he went in search of
Eugene Miller and having found him in solitary meditation on stained
glass windows in the dim-lit grounds of the Villa, sat down by his side
and for the rest of the evening poured his peculiar knowledge of Europe
into the listening ear of the young man from Atlanta.

On the following morning, as soon as he was dressed, he learned from the
Concierge that the Comte de Lussigny had left for Paris by the early
train.

"Good," said Aristide.

A little later Mrs. Errington met him in the lounge and accompanied him
to the lawn where they had sat the day before.

"I have no words to thank you, Monsieur Pujol," she said with tears in
her eyes. "I have heard how you shamed him at the tables. It was brave
of you."

"It was nothing." He shrugged his shoulders as if he were in the habit
of doing deeds like that every day of his life. "And your exquisite
daughter, Madame?"

"Poor Betty! She is prostrate. She says she will never hold up her head
again. Her heart is broken."

"It is young and will be mended," said Aristide.

She smiled sadly. "It will be a question of time. But she is grateful to
you, Monsieur Pujol. She realizes from what a terrible fate you have
saved her." She sighed. There was a brief silence.

"After this," she continued, "a further stay in Aix would be too
painful. We have decided to take the Savoy express this evening and get
back to our quiet home in Somerset."

"Ah, madame," said Aristide earnestly. "And shall I not have the
pleasure of seeing the charming Miss Betty again?"

"You will come and stay with us in September. Let me see? The fifteenth.
Why not fix a date? You have my address? No? Will you write it down?"
she dictated: "Wrotesly Manor, Burnholme, Somerset. There I'll try to
show you how grateful I am."

She extended her hand. He bowed over it and kissed it in his French way
and departed a very happy