cing the apartment with a furtive glance at the half
anxious, half frightened girl, suddenly stopped, dragged a small
portmanteau from behind the heap of bales and opened it. "Look,
Mademoiselle," he said, tremulously lifting a handful of worn and
soiled letters and papers. "Look--these are the tools of your banker,
your lawyer, your doctor. With this the banker will make you poor, the
lawyer will prove you a thief, the doctor will swear you are crazy, eh?
What shall you call the work of a gentleman--this"--he dragged the pile
of cushions forward--"or this?"

To the young girl's observant eyes some of the papers appeared to be of
a legal or official character, and others like bills of lading, with
which she was familiar. Their half-theatrical exhibition reminded her
of some play she had seen; they might be the clue to some story, or the
mere worthless hoardings of a diseased fancy. Whatever they were, de
Ferrieres did not apparently care to explain further; indeed, the next
moment his manner changed to his old absurd extravagance. "But this is
stupid for Mademoiselle to hear. What shall we speak of? Ah, what
SHOULD we speak of in Mademoiselle's presence?"

"But are not these papers valuable?" asked Rosey, partly to draw her
host's thoughts back to their former channel.

"Perhaps." He paused and regarded the young girl fixedly. "Does
Mademoiselle think so?"

"I don't know," said Rosey. "How should I?"

"Ah! if Mademoiselle thought so--if Mademoiselle would deign--" He
stopped again and placed his hand upon his forehead. "It might be so!"
he muttered.

"I must go now," said Rosey, hurriedly, rising with an awkward sense of
constraint. "Father will wonder where I am."

"I shall explain. I will accompany you, Mademoiselle."

"No, no," said Rosey, quickly; "he must not know I have been here!" She
stopped. The honest blush flew to her cheek, and then returned again,
because she had blushed.

De Ferrieres gazed at her with an exalted look. Then drawing himself
to his full height, he said, with an exaggerated and indescribable
gesture, "Go, my child, go. Tell your father that you have been alone
and unprotected in the abode of poverty and suffering, but--that it was
in the presence of Armand de Ferrieres."

He threw open the door with a bow that nearly swept the ground, but did
not again offer to take her hand. At once impressed and embarrassed at
this crowning incongruity, her pretty lip trembled