red
tiles, and is near the Rue St. Philippe?"

Helene laid her fingers on his arm.

"Listen, Monsieur, there is a better way," she said. "Monsieur le Baron
is doubtless very angry with you, and I am sure that this is chiefly
because he does not know you. For instance, if some one were to tell him
that you are a straightforward, courageous young man, a gentleman with
an unquenchable taste for danger, that you are not a low-born adventurer
and intriguer, that you have nothing in particular against his
government, he might not be quite so angry. Pardon me if I say that he
is not disposed to take your expedition any more seriously than is your
own Federal government. The little Baron is irascible, choleric, stern,
or else good-natured, good-hearted, and charitable, just as one happens
to take him. As we say in France, it is not well to strike flint and
steel in his presence. He might blow up and destroy one. Suppose some
one were to go to Monsieur de Carondelet and tell him what a really
estimable person you are, and assure him that you will go quietly out
of his province at the first opportunity, and be good, so far as he is
concerned, forever after? Mark me, I merely say SUPPOSE. I do not know
how far things have gone, or what he may have heard. But suppose a
person whom I have reason to believe he likes and trusts and respects,
a person who understands his vagaries, should go to him on such an
errand."

"And where is such a person to be found," said Nick, amused in spite of
himself.

Madame la Vicomtesse courtesied.

"Monsieur, she is before you," she said.

"Egad," he cried, "do you mean to say, Madame, that you will go to the
Baron on my behalf?"

"As soon as I ever get to town," she said. "He will have to be waked
from his siesta, and he does not like that."

"But he will forgive you," said Nick, quick as a flash.

"I have reason to believe he will," said Madame la Vicomtesse.

"Faith," cried Nick, "he would not be flesh and blood if he didn't."

At that the Vicomtesse laughed, and her eye rested judicially on me. I
was standing rather glumly, I fear, in the corner.

"Are you going to take him with you?" said Nick.

"I was thinking of it," said the Vicomtesse. "Mr. Ritchie knows you, and
he is such a reliable and reputable person."

Nick bowed.

"You should have seen him marching in a Jacobin procession, Madame," he
said.

"He follows his friends into strange places," she retorted.

"And now, Mr