on the ladies, waited even on Hannah, whom he
supposed to be Una's maid. He did not notice that Una shrank from him.
He probably would not have cared even if he had seen that she avoided
touching his hand as she might have avoided some loathsome reptile. His
thoughts and his eyes were all for the Comtesse. She did not shrink from
him. Her wonderful eyes thrilled him again and again. He touched her
hand, her hair, her clothes, as he handed her this or that to eat
or drink. He grew hot and cold in turns with the excitement of her
nearness. He was ecstatically, ridiculously happy.

He walked back to Dunseveric House with her. He promised to call on her
the next day. He promised to leave troopers on guard round the house all
night in case a fugitive rebel, wandering in the demesne, might frighten
the Comtesse. He suggested another pic-nic. At last, reluctantly,
lingeringly, he bade her farewell.

"Adieu, Monsieur le Capitaine," said the Comtesse, "we shall expect you
to-morrow then."

She stretched out her hand to him. He stooped and kissed it. Then she
turned from him and ran up the avenue after Una and Hannah. The captain
watched her. He pulled himself together, reassumed his habitual swagger,
tried to persuade himself that he looked on the Comtesse as he had long
been accustomed to look on other women.

"A damned fine woman," he said, "and a bit smitten with me. Begad, these
French women have a great deal to recommend them. Thy catch fire at
once. A man does not have to spend a month dilly-dallying with them,
dancing attendance and looking like a fool while they are as cold as ice
all the time. Give me a good full-blooded filly like this one."

"Una," said the Comtesse, when she overtook her niece. "Una, I
positively can't stand another day of that man. He's odious. You'll
have to do him yourself to-morrow, and let me go to the young man in the
cave."

"But, Aunt Estelle, I thought you--you liked it. You looked as if you
liked it."

"_Mon dieu!_" said the Comtesse, laughing, "of course I looked as if I
liked it. If I had looked as if I disliked it I could not have kept
him for ten minutes, and then what would have happened to you,
mademoiselle?"

"It was very, very good of you," said Una, penitently. "I can never
thank you enough."

"Oh, it wasn't so very good of me, and I don't want to be thanked at
all. I'll tell you a secret, Una, and Hannah shall hear it too. I did
like it. Now, what do you think?"

"Yo