without achieving anything like a proper understanding of either of
them, and I procured a new viewpoint of Miss Val Beverley. Her repose
was misleading. She deliberately subjugated her own vital personality
to that of Madame de Staemer, why, I knew not, unless she felt herself
under an obligation to do so. That her blue-gray eyes could be wistful
was true enough, they could also be gay; and once I detected in them a
look of sadness which dispelled the butterfly illusion belonging to her
dainty slenderness, to her mobile lips, to the vagabond curling hair of
russet brown.

Paul Harley's manner remained absent, but I who knew his moods so well
recognized that this abstraction was no longer real. It was a pose
which he often adopted when in reality he was keenly interested in his
surroundings. It baffled me, however, as effectively as it baffled
others, and whilst at one moment I decided that he was studying Colonel
Menendez, in the next I became convinced that Madame de Staemer was the
subject upon his mental dissecting table.

That he should find in Madame a fascinating problem did not surprise
me. She must have afforded tempting study for any psychologist. I could
not fathom the nature of the kinship existing between herself and the
Spanish colonel, for Madame de Staemer was French to her fingertips. Her
expressions, her gestures, her whole outlook on life proclaimed the
fashionable Parisienne.

She possessed a vigorous masculine intelligence and was the most
entertaining companion imaginable. She was daringly outspoken, and it
was hard to believe that her gaiety was forced. Yet, as the afternoon
wore on, I became more and more convinced that such was the case.