"None till evening," again holding out her hand--and again smiling him
into kissing it adoringly.

"A useful man, Marston!" she reflected when the door closed behind him.
"And one who never presumes. A smile pays him for anything, and keeps
him devoted to me. Yes, a very useful and satisfactory man. His idea of
corrupting Carpenter may be rather futile; and he may get into a snarl
by trying it, but," with a shrug of her shapely shoulders, "that is his
affair and won't involve me. And if he should prove successful, the new
French key-word which the Count, the dear Count, gave me just before I
left Paris, may turn the trick."

The Count de M---- was confidential secretary to the Foreign Minister,
and he had slipped her the bit of paper containing the key-word at a
ball, two evenings before she sailed on her present mission. He was not
aware that she was sailing, nor was she; the order came so suddenly that
she and her maid had barely time to fling a few things in a couple of
steamer trunks and catch the last train. She had fascinated the Count;
for a year he had been one of her most devoted, but most discreet,
admirers. He also was exceedingly serviceable. Hence she took pains to
hold him.

Languidly she reached for her little gold mesh bag--the one thing that
never left her--and from a secret pocket took several slips of paper.

"Why, where is it!" she exclaimed, looking again with greater care....
"The devil! I've lost it!"

However, after a moment of thought, she recalled the key-word, and the
rule that he whispered to her--also the squeeze he gave her hand, and