allen into the universal habit of drifting.

'You are thoughtful. What can you have been talking about?' asked the
Countess, coming up.

'Mademoiselle Selpdorf has been giving her opinion of me. It is not
flattering, and I am depressed,' returned Rallywood, hoping the Countess
meant to talk of Valerie.

'Has she? She is often absurd in her ideas. But we need not talk of her.
To turn to something pleasanter, do you know that I have just persuaded
Major Counsellor to come to us at Sagan?'

Rallywood instantly perceived that the three or four days at the old
frontier castle might prove to be a singularly interesting period, and
regretted that he was not to be a guest also.

'And you are coming too, are you not?' went on Madame de Sagan, with a
note in her voice that Rallywood was learning to dread.

'I fancy not. Unziar and Adiron have been mentioned.'

'Yes, Anthony Unziar, because he is my cousin, and for the sake of
Valerie. Also Captain Colendorp. I do not like him, he is always black
and sneering, but the Count chose him yesterday, and then I suggested
yourself. They were rather doubtful about you, but Baron von Elmur
consented. And I was so glad--Jack!'

The friendship had been progressing, it will be perceived, during the
last three weeks. But Rallywood made no immediate response, being
absorbed in digesting the information she had given him. That the German
minister should be permitted to dictate the guests for the three days'
festivities at the Castle was in itself a pregnant fact. But further,
the Germans had never before possessed old Sagan's confidence; his
dislike of the encroaching mammoth, whom the whole little nation feared,
was notorious. This new departure was therefore ominous.

'I had no notion that Baron von Elmur liked me any better than my
countrymen,' said Rallywood aloud.

'Ah, no, perhaps not; but now, you will understand, he wishes to please
me!' Countess Isolde answered with an air of mysterious importance.

'He is not alone in wishing to do that,' returned Rallywood, ashamed
even as he uttered it, of the meaningless compliment.

'Jack,' she said, with a proud raising of her blonde head, 'you are my
friend, and of course you wish to please me. But everyone will want to
stand well with me some day--when I have power--and then you shall see
what I will do for those whom I wish to please!'

Every word she spoke added to the certainty that some new plot was
afoot, and Rallywood glance