saw that softness of her beautiful mouth become as steel as she spoke
of him. "To a woman he is impossible, as I have found to my cost, but
all men adore him and follow him madly, so I suppose his attitude
towards them is different from his attitude towards women. My husband
and I disagree utterly about the General. In fact, the old gentleman
and I are at daggers' points just now and I am afraid--afraid that he
will make it difficult for you to be--be friends with me as I--I want
you to be."

"Neither the General Carruthers nor any man, Madam, dictates in
matters of the heart to the Marquise de--that is, to Robert Carruthers
of Grez and Bye, if that is the way I must so name myself now," I
answered in the manner of the old Marquis of Flanders, tinged with the
_grande dame_ manner of the beautiful young Marquise of Grez and
Bye whom I had murdered and left in that room of the great hotel of
Ritz-Carlton in New York.

"It will be delicious to watch his face as you and I alight from this
train together, boy. It will be worth the trouble of this hurried trip
to New York to be introduced to a person who disappeared suddenly in a
tug boat in the open ocean when he should have landed at the docks
with the propriety that would have been expected of him." And as she
spoke I could see that something had happened in New York which had
brought much irritation to the beautiful Madam Whitworth.

"It would seem that it is one of the customs of these great ships to
send out passengers from them in those very funny small tug boats," I
remarked as I leaned forward to catch a last fleeting glimpse of a
lovely girl standing in the doorway of an ancient farmhouse, giving
food to chickens so near the course of the railroad train that it