restaurant offered good cheer.

The Lady of the Lake did the honors ceremoniously, and Major Alan
Hawke was permitted a cigar after the lake trout, filet, pears,
cheese, Chambertin, and black coffee had been discussed. He was both
conquered and repentant, and had adroitly atoned for his mauvais
debut by a respectful demeanor, which was not feigned. He answered
the running fire of questions which had led him from Cape Comorin
to the Himalayas, and from Chittagong to the Khyber Pass.

"You are sure that no one in Geneva knows your face?" Berthe Louison
asked at last.

"I have been here only two days, and it is twenty years since I
first roved over Switzerland on schoolboy leave," was the truthful
answer.

"Then I can use you if you will decide to aid me, after you have
heard me. I know, already, all that young Anstruther knows of the
whole Johnstone matter. I do not intend to meet him at Paris," she
demurely said. "I am absolutely untrammeled in this world. I am
free to act as a woman's moods sway her. I have plenty of money,
a fact which lifts me above the degradation of man's chase, and
I indulge in no illusions. I am a soldier's daughter, and my dead
father was the son of one of Napoleon's heroes of La Grande Armee.
My whole life has been most unconventional; and I am free to dispose
of myself, body and soul, and will, but for one thing." She was
pleased with Alan Hawke's mute glance of inquiry. "Only the business
which brought me to Geneva! We are all the slaves of circumstance!
The veriest fools of fortune! I do not blame you for your surmises!