r and diet.
Therefore the Chancellor, who had avoided his daughter since her return,
made choice of a dismal morning to bring his influence to bear upon her.
He relied a good deal upon Valerie's affection for himself, which was
strong and single-hearted. Moreover, he had trained her to the masculine
habit of taking a broad view, a bird's-eye view, of the whole of a given
subject, instead of turning the microscope of her emotions on any one
point, after the manner of women.

Baron von Elmur was no longer young, but he was a personage and a figure
in the political world. By marrying him Valerie would place herself in a
position where her cleverness, her tact, and her beauty would be offered
a wide and splendid field of activity. Besides, so Selpdorf imagined,
she had no more favoured suitor.

Valerie was sweet and proud and sensitive; her father gave her credit
for the two first qualities, but it probably would not have struck him
to use that last term in describing her. He forgot that, in spite of any
amount of masculine training, a woman remains always a woman at heart.
Had Valerie not met Rallywood, she might never have known as much about
herself as she discovered during her visit to Sagan; as matters stood,
however, the weak point in M. Selpdorf's theory was already under
strain. The Chancellor usually breakfasted alone with his daughter. She
was at once spirited and adaptable--adaptable enough to fall in with a
man's moods, and spirited enough to hold independent opinions, an ideal
combination in a comrade. Servants were rigorously excluded from the
room during the meal, that father and daughter might talk freely
together.

'I have hardly seen you since you came back, Valerie. I have missed
you,' Selpdorf said as he turned away from the table and lit a
cigarette. 'I am hurried to-day, yet I must speak to you on a subject
that cannot be put off. One incident of your stay at the Castle has been
constantly in my mind.'

'Yes, father.'

The unconcern of her voice struck Selpdorf. Things were either about to
go unexpectedly well or else very badly.

'Baron von Elmur tells me you yielded to my advice and his wishes. In
fact, you consented to an engagement.'

'Oh, yes, for the time being.'

'My dear girl,' he returned gravely, 'it has been publicly announced. It
was announced the same evening, I understand.'

Valerie looked at him with a vague alarm in her eyes.

'Only by an unlucky accident,' she replied. 'It