The head behind the handkerchief was shaken, first timidly, then more
emphatically, and a stifled voice vouchsafed the news:

"She left three days ago."

Gustave and I looked at one another. There was a pause. At last I drew a
chair back from the table, and said:

"If madame is ready--"

The duchess whisked her handkerchief away and sprang up. She gave one look
at Gustave's grave face, and then, bursting into a merry laugh, caught me
by the arm, crying:

"Isn't it fun, Mr. Aycon? There's nobody but me! Isn't it fun?"




CHAPTER III.

The Unexpected that Always Happened.


Everything depends on the point of view and is rich in varying aspects. A
picture is sublime from one corner of the room, a daub from another; a
woman's full face may be perfect, her profile a disappointment; above all,
what you admire in yourself becomes highly distasteful in your neighbor.
The moral is, I suppose, Tolerance; or if not that, something else which