ened when that lady no longer
needed her kindness and, as soon happened, ceased to be interesting. She
would not gamble, and the two women had little in common. Miss Gainor's
regard for Rene was more lasting. He was well-built and handsome, and
all her life she had had a fancy for good looks in men. He had, too, the
virile qualities she liked and a certain steadiness of purpose which
took small account of obstacles and reminded her of her nephew Hugh
Wynne. Above all, he had been successful, and she despised people who
failed and too often regarded success as a proof of the right to
succeed, even when the means employed were less creditable than those
by which Rene had made his way. Moreover, had he not told her once that
her French was wonderful? Miss Gainor changed her favorites often, but
Rene kept in her good graces and was blamed only because he did not give
her as much of his time as she desired; for after she heard his history
from Schmidt, he won a place in her esteem which few men had ever held.
She had set her heart at last on his winning Margaret, and the lifelong
game of gambling with other folks' fortunes and an honest idolatry for
the heroic, inclined her to forgive a lack of attention due in a measure
to his increasing occupations.

To keep her eager hands off this promising bit of match-making had been
rather a trial, but Schmidt was one of the few people of whom she had
any fear, and she had promised not to meddle. At present she had begun
to think that the two human pawns in the game she loved were becoming
indifferent, and to let things alone was something to which she had
never been inclined. Had she become aware of the German's mild treachery
that night on the ice, she would in all likelihood have been angry at
first and then pleased or annoyed not to have had a hand in the matter.

Mistress Wynne, even in the great war, rarely allowed her violent
politics to interfere with piquet, and now Mr. Dallas had asked leave to
bring Fauchet, the new French minister, to call upon her. He was gay,
amusing, talked no politics, played piquet nearly as well as she, and
was enchanted, as he assured her, to hear French spoken without accent.
If to De la Foret, the consul-general, he made merry concerning his
travels in China, as he called her drawing-room, saying it was
perilously over-populous with strange gods, she did not hear it, nor
would she have cared so long as she won the money of the French
republic.