ts. Your rash meddling would only ruin your own
money interests and not hurt my plans."

"Then we are to make an offensive and defensive alliance without trust
or faith in each other?" agnostically remarked Hawke.

"Just so!" answered Madame Louison. "I can make it to your interest
to serve me well, better than the man whom I wish to face. You know
India--you happen to know Delhi. Your possible adversary is an old
civilian, rich, retired, and unable to rake up trouble for you in
military circles. I will do my work alone, but I shall want your aid,
and I will pay you liberally. I will go up to Lausanne. You will find me
at the Hotel Faucon. Bring up some route maps of India. We will go out
as soon as possible. Do you wish any present money?"

Alan Hawke reddened as he shook his head.

"Then, Major Hawke, if you will take the first passing carriage, we will
meet as soon as you have succeeded. Send me a telegram of your coming."
The adventurer's low bow of silent assent terminated the strange
breakfast scene, and at the gate of the vine-clad garden he turned and
saw her seated there alone, with her head bowed in a reverie.

"Damme if she is made of flesh and blood!" mused the Major, as he drove
back to the Hotel National. That very evening he revenged himself upon
the callous-hearted stranger, by a reckless flirtation with the Misses
Phenie and Genie Forbes, still of Chicago. It was not a matter of
concern to any one but Paterfamilias Forbes that the Major indulged in
a stolen moonlight excursion upon the lake in charge of two extremely
prononcee Daisy Millers. The Major's slumbers, however, were of the
lightest, for the face of the chance-met directress of his immediate
future haunted his uneasy dreams. He was a model of respectable gravity,
however, when he presented himself before Mademoiselle Euphrosyne
Delande, at her Institute, when the bells clanged ten in the morning.
Major Hawke at once impressed the sleek door-opener, Francois, by the
ultra refinement of his demeanor, and the suave elegance of his French.
"Evidently the one necessary Adam in this Garden of undeveloped young
Peris," thought Hawke, as he gazed around the cheerless room, with its
globes, busts of departed sages, topographical maps, and framed samples
of the "Execution" of the jeunes personnes, with brush and pencil.

"Looks breachy, that fellow--they all have to sneak out to drink, and
for les fetifs plaisirs! He may be made useful. I'll have a