of Lanceray, and little
jewelled daggers.

This salon communicated with a much larger one, where General Vogotzine
usually took his siesta, and which Marsa abandoned to him, preferring
the little room, the windows of which, framed in ivy, looked out upon
the garden, with the forest in the distance.

Michel Menko was well acquainted with this little salon, where he had
more than once seen Marsa seated at the piano playing her favorite airs.
He remembered it all so well, and, nervously twisting his moustache, he
longed for her to make her appearance. He listened for the frou-frou
of Marsa's skirts on the other side of the lowered portiere which hung
between the two rooms; but he heard no sound.

The General had shaken hands with Michel, as he passed through the large
salon, saying, in his thick voice:

"Have you come to see Marsa? You have had enough of that water-party,
then? It was very pretty; but the sun was devilish hot. My head is
burning now; but it serves me right for not remaining quiet at home."

Then he raised his heavy person from the armchair he had been sitting
in, and went out into the garden, saying: "I prefer to smoke in the open
air; it is stifling in here." Marsa, who saw Vogotzine pass out, let him
go, only too willing to have him at a distance during her interview with
Michel Menko; and then she boldly entered the little salon, where the
Count, who had heard her approach, was standing erect as if expecting
some attack.

Marsa closed the door behind her; and, before speaking a word, the
two faced each other, as if measuring the degree of hardihood each
possessed. The Tzigana, opening fire first, said, bravely and without
preamble:

"Well, you wished to see me. Here I am! What do you want of me?"

"To ask you frankly whether it is true, Marsa, that you are about to
marry Prince Zilah."

She tried to laugh; but her laugh broke nervously off. She said,
however, ironically:

"Oh! is it for that that you are here?"

"Yes."

"It was perfectly useless, then, for you to take the trouble: you ask
me a thing which you know well, which all the world knows, which all the
world must have told you, since you had the audacity to be present at
that fete to-day."

"That is true," said Michel, coldly; "but I only learned it by chance. I
wished to hear it from your own lips."

"Do I owe you any account of my conduct?" asked Marsa, with crushing
hauteur.

He was silent a moment, strode across the roo