, to spite his own fat-witted
Brunswickers, and so escaped the blood-fleshed talons of the
hungry-Prussian eagle.

Duke Charles I hovered amiably in the air, over a comfortable carriage
wherein the "other little matters" were most temptingly materialized
in the person of a lovely woman waiting there with burning eyes, her
splendid face veiled in a black Spanish lace scarf. It was the old
fate--"Unlucky at cards, lucky in love!" The staff officer's abrupt
command to "drive everywhere, anywhere," until "further orders," was
implicitly obeyed by the stolid cabby, who set off at once for a
long round of the mild "lions" of fair Geneva, nestling there by the
shimmering lake.

The click of the horses' feet upon the deserted roadway kept time to the
murmurs of a most coy Delilah, who molded as wax in her slender hands
the ardent military Samson, who was all unmindful of his flowing locks!
And the silent moon shimmered down upon the waste of waters!

Alan Hawke was seated for an hour alone in his room, enjoying the cigars
offered up by the "Universal Provider," who had yielded up so liberally.
The strong brandy and soda had at last restored his shaken nerves, for
he had played with his life staked upon the outcome! He then grimly
counted up his winnings. "Four-hundred and eighty-eight good pounds!
That will take me back to Delhi in very good shape," he soliloquized.
"I wonder if there is anyway to get at that girl? If I mistake not, she
will have a half a million! The old Commissioner always liked me, too.
By God! If I could only get in between him and this baronetcy I might
creep in on the girl's friendship! But the old curmudgeon keeps her
locked up! Rather risky in India!" He leaned back, enjoying memories of
the women with pulses of flame and hearts of glowing coal whom he had
met in the days when he was "dead square." This strange woman! Who is
she? What does she know?

He dozed off until the clattering return of the Misses Phemie and Genie
Forbes, of Chicago, aroused him. His broad grin accentuated the easily
overheard strident remark: "Say, Genie, I wish we had had those two
English Lords at our opera supper. They are just jim-dandies, that's
what!"

"As long as the world is full of such fools, I can afford to live," he
pleasantly remarked, as he turned in. A new campaign was opening to
him. Far away, up the shores of the moon-transfigured lake, a hot-headed
young fool was showering kisses on the hand of a woman, w