I still love and
do not care to be at variance with you. Let us be friends, Lance, at
least until you are of age."

She held out her hands again with a smile he could not resist.

"I tell you frankly," continued my lady, "that the young person has been
to see me. We had quite a melodramatic interview. I do not wish to vex
you, Lance, but she would make a capital fifth-rate actress for a
tragedy in a barn."

"Come, my lady, that is too bad," said the earl.

The countess laughed.

"It was really sensational," she said. "The conclusion of the interview
was a very solemn threat on her part that she would be revenged upon me,
so that I must be prepared for war. But, Lance, let it be as it may, we
must be friends. You will not refuse your mother when she asks a favor,
and it is the first favor, mind."

"I cannot refuse," he replied. "I will be friends, as you phrase it,
mother, but you must change your opinion about Leone."

"Another time," said my lady, with a wave of the hand. "Kiss me now,
Lance, and be friends. Shake hands with your father. We are staying at
the Hotel France. When the ball is over, join us at supper."

And in that way the solemn reconciliation was effected.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A SHREWD SCHEME.

There had been nothing very sentimental in the reconciliation scene
between parents and son. The earl and Lord Chandos walked home through
the quiet streets of Berlin, while my lady drove. They smoked the cigar
of peace, while Lord Chandos reported his social triumphs to his father.
No more passed between them on the most important of all subjects--his
love, his marriage, and the lawsuit; they spoke of anything and
everything else. The only words which went from the heart of the father
to the heart of the son, were these:

"I am glad you have made friends with my lady, Lance. She has pined
after you, and she is so proud. She says nothing, but I know that she
has felt the separation from you most keenly. I am glad it is all right;
you must not vex her again, Lance."

"I will not, if I can help it," replied the young lord; and so the
conversation ended.

Lord Chandos was a clever man, but he was in the hands of a far more
clever woman. When a woman has the gift of strategy, she excels in it,
and the countess added this to her other accomplishments. She was a
magnificent strategist. Her maneuvers were of the finest; quite beyond
the power of one less gifted to detect. A man in her skillful hand