rd of it, and I hope you will
not either. The story is that her husband found her with Van Torp
the other evening in rooms he keeps in the Temple, and there was an
envelope on the table addressed to her in his handwriting, in which
there were four thousand one hundred pounds in notes.'

Margaret looked thoughtfully at Lady Maud before she answered.

'She? With Mr. Van Torp, and taking money from him? Oh no! Not with
that face!'

'Besides,' said Logotheti, 'why the odd hundred? The story gives too
many details. People never know as much of the truth as that.'

'And if it is true,' returned Margaret, 'he will divorce her, and then
we shall know.'

'For that matter,' said the Greek contemptuously, 'Leven would not be
particular, provided he had his share of the profits.'

'Is it as bad as that? How disgusting! Poor woman!'

'Yes. I fancy she is to be pitied. In connection with Van Torp, may I
ask an indiscreet question?'

'No question you can ask me about him can be indiscreet. What is it?'

'Is it true that he once asked you to marry him and you refused him?'

Margaret turned her pale face to Logotheti with a look of genuine
surprise.

'Yes. It's true. But I never told any one. How in the world did you
hear it?'

'And he quite lost his head, I heard, and behaved like a madman--'

'Who told you that?' asked Margaret, more and more astonished, and not
at all pleased.

'He behaved so strangely that you ran into the next room and bolted
the door, and waited till he went away--'

'Have you been paying a detective to watch me?'

There was anger in her eyes for a moment, but she saw at once that she
was mistaken.

'No,' Logotheti answered with a smile, 'why should I? If a detective
told me anything against you I should not believe it, and no one could
tell me half the good I believe about you!'

'You're really awfully nice,' laughed Margaret, for she could not help
being flattered. 'Forgive me, please!'

'I would rather that the Nike of Samothrace should think dreadful
things of me than that she should not think of me at all!'

'Do I still remind you of her?' asked Margaret.

'Yes. I used to be quite satisfied with my Venus, but now I want the
Victory from the Louvre. It's not a mere resemblance. She is you, and
as she has no face I see yours when I look at her. The other day I
stood so long on the landing where she is, that a watchman took me for
an anarchist waiting to deposit a bomb, and he called a