y room--a
badly shaken man whose rage could afford him no support against the
dread by which he was suddenly invaded.

He sat down to think things out, and he was still at that melancholy
occupation when perhaps a half-hour later his daughter entered the room,
returned at last from her excursion.

She looked pale, even a little scared--in reality excessively
self-conscious now that the ordeal of facing all the company awaited
her.

Seeing no one but her father in the room, she checked on the threshold.

"Where is everybody?" she asked, in a voice rendered natural by effort.

M. Binet reared his great head and turned upon her eyes that were
blood-injected. He scowled, blew out his thick lips and made harsh
noises in his throat. Yet he took stock of her, so graceful and comely
and looking so completely the lady of fashion in her long fur-trimmed
travelling coat of bottle green, her muff and her broad hat adorned by
a sparkling Rhinestone buckle above her adorably coiffed brown hair. No
need to fear the future whilst he owned such a daughter, let Scaramouche
play what tricks he would.

He expressed, however, none of these comforting reflections.

"So you're back at last, little fool," he growled in greeting. "I was
beginning to ask myself if we should perform this evening. It wouldn't
greatly have surprised me if you had not returned in time. Indeed,
since you have chosen to play the fine hand you held in your own way and
scorning my advice, nothing can surprise me."

She crossed the room to the table, and leaning against it, looked down
upon him almost disdainfully.

"I have nothing to regret," she said.

"So every fool says at first. Nor would you admit it if you had. You
are like that. You go your own way in spite of advice from older heads.
Death of my life, girl, what do you know of men?"

"I am not complaining," she reminded him.

"No, but you may be presently, when you discover that you would have
done better to have been guided by your old father. So long as your
Marquis languished for you, there was nothing you could not have done
with the fool. So long as you let him have no more than your fingertips
to kiss... ah, name of a name! that was the time to build your future.
If you live to be a thousand you'll never have such a chance again, and
you've squandered it, for what?"

Mademoiselle sat down.--"You're sordid," she said, with disgust.

"Sordid, am I?" His thick lips curled again. "I have had e