"Does he know, too?" asked de Vere.

"Mr. Overgold?" she said carelessly. "I suppose he does.
Eh apres, mon ami?"

French? Another mystery! Where and how had she learned
it? de Vere asked himself. Not in France, certainly.

"I fear that you are very young, amico mio," Dorothea
went on carelessly. "After all, what is there wrong in
it, piccolo pochito? To a man's mind perhaps--but to a
woman, love is love."

She beckoned to the butler.

"Take Mr. Overgold a cutlet to the music-room," she
said, "and give him his gorgonzola on the inkstand in
the library."

"And now," she went on, in that caressing way which seemed
so natural to her, "don't let us think about it any more!
After all, what is is, isn't it?"

"I suppose it is," said de Vere, half convinced in spite
of himself.

"Or at any rate," said Dorothea, "nothing can at the same
time both be and not be. But come," she broke off, gaily
dipping a macaroon in a glass of creme de menthe and