day you will thank your dear old friend for sheltering you under the
wings of her experience."

And thus they said good-night affectionately and parted--Madame to
plan some new way of entrapping her charming friend into matrimony;
Natalie to fall into a deep study as she prepared for the night.

The subject of her thoughts, she felt sure, could no longer be in
Langres. Fortunately, one can shift his thought-scenes around the
world in a twinkling. Paul, on the other hand, had spent some seven
dragging hours on his journey to Paris.

The next morning as she glanced over the columns of the _Matin_, the
Countess exclaimed:

"_Voila_! Sir Paul Verdayne is at the _Hotel du Rhin._ You are too
young to have known him, my dear. Those sad years you were fortunately
away at the Convent." And the kind-hearted old lady's eyes filled at
the remembrance of Paul's sad story. "A charming man, truly. I shall
send him a note at once, asking him to dine with us to-night--we need
one more, and he is the very person. It is some years since I have
seen him, but in London he came often to the Embassy."

The elder lady did not perceive the somewhat startled look on the face
of Mademoiselle Vseslavitch.

"I shall have him take you in to dinner, my dear," she continued. "He
is most charming company when he wishes to be, I assure you."

"Oh, Countess, no!" the young woman cried. "Let some one else have
your wonderful Englishman. Good old Baron Lancret will amuse me
sufficiently, my dear."

"Ah, but no. The dear soul has grown quite deaf since you last saw
him. I can not think of allowing it. Be a good child now. This is no
plot. Sir Paul is an incurable misogynist--the only man I know who
would not fall in love with you. See! your old friend is doing her
best to provide you with an ideal dinner-partner. What more could you
wish? It is settled."

And a servant was promptly dispatched to the _Hotel du Rhin_.

* * * * *

"Do the Count and myself the favor to dine with us this evening,"
Paul read when he opened the note. "You will not have forgotten your
old friends of a half-dozen years ago? We shall be charmed to see you
again--and I shall expect you without fail."

Well, he had no engagement for that night--and Paul sent back a polite
note of acceptance. He remembered many pleasant functions that he had
attended in years past at the Dalmatian Embassy in London. After all,
he had to do something. He co