with one last glance at the back of the carriage ahead[158] (if it were only an automobile!—then there'd be a number on it! he thought) Paul was turned sharply around and carried toward the main entrance to the Bois.

[158]

Even some hours later, when he was ready to start for the Dalmatian Embassy, his rage had not cooled greatly; it was therefore in a tone strangely at variance with his unruffled evening dress that he directed his chauffeur. As for Baxter, he had never seen his master in so villainous a humour. Indeed, had it not been for an uncommonly pretty femme de chambre in the hotel, whose acquaintance he had made the evening before, he would have been tempted to give his employer notice.

"His langwidge was somethink dread[159]ful!" he confided to her after Paul had gone.

[159]

The pleasant ride through the Faubourg St. Germain served to mollify Paul somewhat; and when he walked up to the brilliantly lighted entrance, where a resplendent flunky opened the massive doors for him, he was more himself again. He was soon greeting his host and hostess, whose genuine pleasure at seeing him once more was so evident that the last vestige of Paul's ill-humour vanished before their welcoming smiles.

Presently the Countess turned to Paul and said:

"Come! I want to present you to a young Russian friend of mine whom you are to take in to dinner," and taking his arm she led him into an adjoining room.

And there Paul met his vision, face to face; the lady of his quest.

[161]

[161]

CHAPTER XV

t first Paul could hardly believe his senses. He was conscious, as he gazed into the depths of two marvellous eyes, of a tall supple figure all in black, a crimson rose in her dark hair lending a touch of color—that, and her red lips.

This was the face that had burned its lineaments into the tablets of his memory—the face so sweetly known at Lake Lucerne.

The babble of the arriving guests—the strains of the orchestra—became as the faint murmurs of a far off sea.

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