sly
thanking the powers that be for this strange chance of going on the
spree with a toque. When Mademoiselle Verbena returned he was looking
almost rakish. He eyed her neat black hat and close-fitting black jacket
with a glance not wholly unlike that of a militiaman. In her hand she
held a vivid scarlet parasol.

"Monsieur," she said, "it is terrible, this _ombrelle_, when mamma lies
at death's door. But what can I do? I have no other, and cannot afford
to buy one. The sun is fierce. I dare not expose myself to it without a
shelter."

She seemed really distressed as she opened the parasol, and spread the
vivid silk above her pretty black-clothed figure; but Mr. Greyne thought
the effect was brilliant, and ventured to say so. As they passed the
bureau by the fountain on their way out the stout Frenchwoman cast an
approving glance at Mademoiselle Verbena.

"The little rat will not see much more of the little negro now," she
murmured to herself. "After all the English have their uses."

VI

In Belgrave Square Mrs. Eustace Greyne was beginning to get slightly
uneasy. Several things combined to make her so. In the first place,
Mademoiselle Verbena had never returned from her mother's Parisian
bedside, and had not even written a line to say how the dear parent was,
and when the daughter's nursing occupation was likely to be over. In the
second place, Adolphus, in consequence of the Levantine's absence, had
totally lost his grasp, always uncertain, upon the irregular verbs.
In the third place, Darrell, the valet, had returned to London the day
after his departure from it, minus not only his master's dressing-case,
but minus everything he possessed. His story was that, while waiting at
the station in Paris for his master's appearance, he had entered into
conversation with an agreeable stranger, and been beguiled into the
acceptance of an absinthe at a cafe just outside. After swallowing
the absinthe he remembered nothing more till he came to himself in a
deserted waiting-room at the Gare du Nord, back to which he had been
mysteriously conveyed. In his pocket was no money, no watch, only
the return half of a second-class ticket from London to Paris. He,
therefore, wandered about the streets till morning broke, and then came
back to London a crestfallen and miserable man, bemoaning his untoward
fate, and cursing "them blasted Frenchies" from the bottom of his
British heart.

Mrs. Greyne's anxiety on her husband's b