"You find us at length, Mr. Vendale. Perhaps you may lose us again."

"I trust not. The curious coincidence that has enabled me to find you,
encourages me to hope not."

"What is that coincidence, sir, if you please?" A dainty little native
touch in this turn of speech, and in its tone, made it perfectly
captivating, thought George Vendale, when again he noticed an
instantaneous glance towards Madame Dor. A caution seemed to be conveyed
in it, rapid flash though it was; so he quietly took heed of Madame Dor
from that time forth.

"It is that I happen to have become a partner in a House of business in
London, to which Mr. Obenreizer happens this very day to be expressly
recommended: and that, too, by another house of business in Switzerland,
in which (as it turns out) we both have a commercial interest. He has
not told you?"

"Ah!" cried Obenreizer, striking in, filmless. "No. I had not told Miss
Marguerite. The world is so small and so monotonous that a surprise is
worth having in such a little jog-trot place. It is as he tells you,
Miss Marguerite. He, of so fine a family, and so proudly bred, has
condescended to trade. To trade! Like us poor peasants who have risen
from ditches!"

A cloud crept over the fair brow, and she cast down her eyes.

"Why, it is good for trade!" pursued Obenreizer, enthusiastically. "It
ennobles trade! It is the misfortune of trade, it is its vulgarity, that
any low people--for example, we poor peasants--may take to it and climb