d not
determine if his surprise were natural or assumed.

He crossed to a front window and watched her out of sight.

"There is no discounting her beauty," he remarked.

I was silent.

He came over, and dropped into a chair on the other side of the table.
It was just where Mrs. Spencer had sat, and, so, a very fit place for
him.

"She must be a most extraordinary woman," he observed.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Yet, what I can't understand, is what she hopes to gain by
masquerading, here, as your wife."

I looked at him and waited. He was steering into strange waters, it
seemed to me.

"Now, if she had done it in Paris, or Vienna, or any place outside of
Valeria," he went on, "one could see the temporary profit of it. But,
to come to Dornlitz and dare it under your very nose!"--he flung up his
hands. "She is a bit too much for me!"

I saw his drift, now. He wanted to know if I suspected him; and, to
that end, was quite willing to match his wit against mine. His
contempt for my discernment was not, especially, flattering; but,
sometimes, it does no harm to be taken for a fool--if one is not. And
I was conceited enough to consider myself the latter. Which, however,
may only have proven that Lotzen was right.

"And for me, too, at present," I answered.

"At present?" he echoed, blowing a succession of smoke rings and
watching them float away.

I nodded. "She will get tired of the game, presently, and quit."

"She has stuck to it rather persistently," he observed; "and crossed
the seas to play it."

"Yes," said I, "she did just that; yet she is none the less liable to
quit abruptly to-morrow."

That would interest him, I thought. It did.

"You are judging from experience?" he asked, rather quickly.

"I've known the lady for a few years," I laughed, "and I've yet to find
her true either to herself or to the hand that paid her."

It was characteristic of the man that, at these last words, he made no
quick glance at my face. Instead, he studied the end of his cigar.
When he did look at me, it was in the perfectly natural way of asking a
question.

Then I got a start. He suddenly struck straight from the shoulder.

"By 'the hand that paid her,' you mean?" he asked--and now, his eyes
were fairly drilling into mine.

I took on a look of surprise.

"What does it usually mean?" I answered, with a bit of a shrug.

He either had to appear to accept the inference in this answer or else
ask m