ge we had coming down."

"Was it?" returned Elsa innocently.

The colonel reached for an olive and bit into it savagely. He was no
fool. She had him at the end of a blind-alley, and there he must wait
until she was ready to let him go. She could harry him or pretend to
ignore him, as suited her fancy. He was caught. Women, all women,
possessed at least one attribute of the cat. It was digging in the
claw, hanging by it, and boredly looking about the world to see what
was going on. At that moment the colonel recognized the sting of the
claw.

Elsa turned to her right and engaged the French consul discursively:
the vandalism in the gardens at Versailles, the glut of vehicles in the
Bois at Paris, the disappearing of the old landmarks, the old Hotel de
Sevigne, now the most interesting _musee_ in France. Indeed, Elsa
gradually became the center of interest; she drew them intentionally.
She brought a touch of home to the Frenchman, to the German, to the
Italian, to the Spaniard; and the British official, in whose hands the
civil business of the Straits Settlements rested, was charmed to learn
that Elsa had spent various week-ends at the home of his sister in
Surrey.

And when she admitted that she was the daughter of General Chetwood,
the man to whom the Indian government had cause to be grateful, upon
more than one occasion, for the solidity of his structures, the colonel
realized definitely the seriousness of his crucifixion. He sat stiffer
and stiffer in his chair, and the veins in his nose grew deeper and
deeper in hue. He saw clearly that he would never understand American
women. He had committed an outrageous blunder. He, instead of
dominating, had been dominated by three faultfinding old women; and,
without being aware of the fact, had looked at things from their point
of view. A most inconceivable blunder. He would not allow that he was
being swayed less by the admission of his unpardonable rudeness on
board than by the immediate knowledge that Elsa was known to the
British official's sister, a titled lady who stood exceedingly high at
court.

"Miss Chetwood," he said, lowering his voice for her ears only.

Elsa turned, but with the expression that signified that her attention
was engaged elsewhere.

"Yes?"

"I am an old man. I am sixty-two; and most of these sixty-two I have
lived roughly; but I am not too old to realize that I have made a fool
of myself."

Interest began to fill Elsa's