race--his good humor being one of them--Blakeman yet possessed that
smoothness and deference so often found in an English servant. In his
earlier life he had served Lord Bromley in the Indian jungle during
the famine; had been second man at the country seat of the Duke of
Valmoncourt at the time of the baccarat scandal, and later on had
risen to the position of chief butler in the establishment of an
unpopular Roumanian general.

It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that he was at forty-five past
master in domestic diplomacy, knowing to a detail the private history
of more than a score of families, having studied them at his ease
behind their chairs, or that he knew infinitely more of the world at
large than did his master.

Blakeman had two absorbing passions--one was his love of shooting and
the other his reverent adoration of Margaret, whom he had seen develop
into womanhood, and who was his Madonna and good angel.

At high noon, then, when the silver bell on Alice's night table
broke the stillness of her bedroom, her French maid, Annette, entered
noiselessly and slid back the soft curtains screening the bay window.
She, like Blakeman, had seen much. She was, too, more self-contained
in many things than the woman she served, although she had been bred
in Montmartre and born in the Rue Lepic.

"Did madame ring?" Annette asked, bending over her mistress.

Alice roused herself lazily.

"Yes--my coffee and letters."