l to Mr. Tarbox to spin a web as it is for a spider.
To manoeuvre was the profoundest instinct of his unprofound nature.
Zosephine felt the slender threads weaving around her. But in her
heart of hearts there was a certain pleasure in being snared. It could
not, to her, seem wholly bad for Tarbox to play spider, provided he
should play the harmless spider. Mr. Tarbox spoke again, and she
listened amiably.

"Claude is talented. He has what I haven't; I have what he hasn't, and
together we could make each other's fortunes, if he's only the square,
high-style fellow I think he is. I'm a student of human nature, and I
think I've made him out. I think he'll do to tie to. But will he? You
can tell me. You read people by instinct. I ask you just as a matter
of business advice and in business confidence. What do you think? Will
you trust me and tell me--as my one only trusted friend--freely and
fully--as I would tell you?"

Madame Beausoleil felt the odds against her, but she looked into her
companion's face with bright, frank eyes and said: "Yass, I t'ink
yass; I t'ink _'tis_ so."

"Thanks!" said her friend, with unnecessary fervor and tenderness.
"Then Claude will be my partner, unless--my dear friend, shall you be
so kind--I might almost say confiding--to me, and me not tell you
something I think you'd ought to know? For I hope we are always to be
friends; don't you?"

"Yass," she said, very sadly and sweetly.

"Thanks! And if Claude and I become partners that will naturally bring
him into our circle, as it were; see?"

The little madame looked up with a sudden austere exaltation of frame
and intensity of face, but her companion rushed on with--"And I'm
going to tell you, let the risk to me be what it may, that it may
result in great unhappiness to Claude; for he loves your daughter,
who, I know, you must think too good for him!"

Madame Beausoleil blushed as though she herself were Marguerite and
Tarbox were Claude.

"Ah! love Marguerite! Naw, naw! He dawn't love noboddie but hees papa!
Hees papa tell me dat! Ah! naw, 'tis _not_ so!"

Mr. Tarbox stopped still; and when Zosephine saw they were in the
shadow of the trees while all about them was brightened by the
momentary Southern twilight, she, too, stopped, and he spoke.

"What brought Claude back here when by right he should have gone
straight to the city? You might have guessed it when you saw him." He
paused to let her revolve the thought, and added in his