seem. Others besides myself she has driven to distraction. She
is tall and straight, and very slim. Her body looks as though it
could be tied into a knot, or bent double, like a cord. The
imprint of her foot is long and narrow. It is, a maddening
imprint--yes, simply a maddening one! And her hair has a reddish
tint about it, and her eyes are like cat's eyes--though able also
to glance with proud, disdainful mien. On the evening of my
first arrival, four months ago, I remember that she was sitting
and holding an animated conversation with De Griers in the
salon. And the way in which she looked at him was such that
later, when I retired to my own room upstairs, I kept fancying
that she had smitten him in the face--that she had smitten him
right on the cheek, so peculiar had been her look as she stood
confronting him. Ever since that evening I have loved her.

But to my tale.

I stepped from the path into the carriage-way, and took my stand
in the middle of it. There I awaited the Baron and the Baroness.
When they were but a few paces distant from me I took off my
hat, and bowed.

I remember that the Baroness was clad in a voluminous silk
dress, pale grey in colour, and adorned with flounces and a
crinoline and train. Also, she was short and inordinately stout,
while her gross, flabby chin completely concealed her neck. Her
face was purple, and the little eyes in it had an impudent,
malicious expression. Yet she walked as though she were
conferring a favour upon everybody by so doing. As for the
Baron, he was tall, wizened, bony-faced after the German