than her own height, and his profile presented the clean, sharp effect of
a cameo. The vivid outline of his dark face held Armitage's eyes; then as
Shirley passed on through an opening in the crowd her escort turned,
holding the way open for her, and Armitage met the man's gaze.

It was with an accented gravity that Armitage nodded his head to some
declaration of the melancholy attaché at this moment. He had known when
he left Geneva that he had not done with Jules Chauvenet; but the man's
prompt appearance surprised Armitage. He ran over the names of the
steamers by which Chauvenet might easily have sailed from either a German
or a French port and reached Washington quite as soon as himself.
Chauvenet was in Washington, at any rate, and not only there, but
socially accepted and in the good graces of Shirley Claiborne.

The somber attaché was speaking of the Japanese.

"They must be crushed--crushed," said Franzel. The two had been
conversing in French.

"Yes, _he_ must be crushed," returned Armitage absent-mindedly, in
English; then, remembering himself, he repeated the affirmation in
French, changing the pronoun.

Mrs. Sanderson was now free. She was a pretty, vivacious woman, much
younger than her stalwart husband,--a college graduate whom he had found
teaching school near one of his silver mines.

"Welcome once more, constituent! We're proud to see you, I can tell you.
Our host owns some marvelous tapestries and they're hung out to-night for
the world to see." She guided Armitage toward the Secretary's gallery on