hardly five yet."

"Yes; that's so. The Du Buits have not come either. What on earth
are you wasting your time for?" she added sharply, raising her
voice. "Just finish addressing those letters while you're waiting."

"They're nearly finished," said Sonia.

"Nearly isn't quite. Get on with them, can't you!" snapped Germaine.

Sonia went back to the writing-table; just the slightest deepening
of the faint pink roses in her cheeks marked her sense of Germaine's
rudeness. After three years as companion to Germaine Gournay-Martin,
she was well inured to millionaire manners; they had almost lost the
power to move her.

Germaine dropped into a chair for twenty seconds; then flung out of
it.

"Ten minutes to five!" she cried. "Jacques is late. It's the first
time I've ever known him late."

She went to the window, and looked across the wide stretch of
meadow-land and woodland on which the chateau, set on the very crown
of the ridge, looked down. The road, running with the irritating
straightness of so many of the roads of France, was visible for a
full three miles. It was empty.

"Perhaps the Duke went to the Chateau de Relzieres to see his
cousin--though I fancy that at bottom the Duke does not care very