is, I believe, a very wealthy manufacturer there. He crosses often to
England. He has money, and he is always gay."

"And Mademoiselle Alice?"

"Who knows?" was the somewhat pointless reply. "She came from America.
She arrived here this season with Monsieur le General."

"What General?" Norgate asked. "A Belgian?"

"But no," his companion corrected. "All the world knows that Alice is the
friend of General le Foys, chief of the staff in Paris. He is a very
great soldier. He spends eleven months working and one month here."

"And she is also," Norgate observed meditatively, "the friend of Herr
Selingman. Tell me, mademoiselle, what do you suppose those two are
talking of now? See how close their heads are together. I don't think
that Herr Selingman is a Don Juan."

"They speak, perhaps, of serious matters," his companion surmised, "but
who can tell? Besides, is it for us to waste our few moments wondering?
You will come back to Ostend, monsieur?"

Norgate looked back at the streaming curve of lights flashing across the
dark waters.

"One never knows," he answered.

"That is what Monsieur Selingman himself says," she remarked, with a
little sigh. "'Enjoy your Ostend to-day, my little ones,' he said, when