Brudenell paused, stood hesitating for a few moments,
then went out and joined her.

She would have moved away as he approached her, but, with his usual
diffident, shy manner toward her, he begged her to remain for a little
while, as he had something to say. Then she turned and walked beside
him--her eyes fixed intently upon him in the gray dusk. Had he kept his
eyes upon her face, instead of nervously looking away, he would have
seen upon it curiosity, and signs of apprehension too scornful and
contemptuous for fear.

"I will only keep you a moment, Mademoiselle. I wanted to say, that
with regard to your brother----"

"Yes, sir."

"I am glad to tell you that I have been successful in my efforts on his
behalf. There is, in the business-house of a friend of mine, a post
vacant which I think will probably suit him, and which he is likely to
fill creditably. Indeed, I may say that it only awaits his acceptance
to-morrow."

Her eyes had wandered away from his face when he began to speak; now
they came back quickly, gleaming brightly in the dusk. He was taken
aback, and yet he wondered why, for she merely repeated:

"To-morrow?"

"I was merely going to add that to-morrow an interview will probably
settle the business."

"Ah, sir--you see you are so kind, so good! How can I thank you--what
can I say?"

George Brudenell, listening, looking, lost his head. He had meant to
tell her what he had to tell quietly and coolly, make light of the
thanks which only embarrassed him, and so go back soberly to his book
and cigar again. But he met her eyes, heard her voice, and the resolve
was gone. He never knew what it was that he said to Alexia
Boucheafen--in what words he clothed his passion, in what phrases he
pleaded. He only knew that she listened for a moment impassively, that
the next time the cold blankness of her face was gone, that it was
replaced by a look of scorn, incredulity, pity, contempt--he did not
know what--that an instant later she had wrenched away the hand he had
taken, had burst into a laugh that rang out shrilly in the gloom, and
that he was standing alone, bewildered, thinking that her laugh had
sounded like an echo of the laugh that he had heard last night in that
mysterious house--the laugh of the gray-haired man with the scar upon
his cheek.

Alexia Boucheafen, moving with a rapidity unlike her usual slow
graceful motion, had rushed into the house and up to her sitting-room.
Her brother was there