always, I hope," he replied, "only I am just now clearing out a great many of my interests in America, and that alone is sufficient to keep one busy."

He passed on with a little bow and took his place at the table which the maître d'hôtel had indicated. The Marquis, to whom his coming had been without any real significance, continued his conversation with Marcia until he found to his surprise that she was giving him less than her whole attention. "What do you think of our hero of finance?" he inquired, a little coldly.

"He seems very much as you described him," Marcia answered. "To tell you the truth, his sudden appearance just as we were talking about him rather took my breath away."

"It was a coincidence, without a doubt," the Marquis acknowledged. Her eyes wandered towards the man who had given his brief order for dinner, and whose whole attention now seemed absorbed by the newspaper which he was reading.

"It is Mr. Thain, is it not, who introduced to you this wonderful speculation?" she asked, a little abruptly.

"That is so," the Marquis admitted. "I have always myself, however, been favorably disposed towards oil."

Marcia suddenly withdrew her glance, laughed softly to herself, and sipped her wine. "I was indulging in a ridiculous train of thought," she confessed. "Mr. Thain looks very clever, even if he is not exactly one's idea of an American financier. I expect the poor man does get hunted about. A millionaire, especially from foreign parts, has become a sort of Monte Cristo, nowadays."

The subject of David Thain dropped. The Marquis, as their coffee was brought, began to wonder dimly whether it was possible that the thread of their conversation was a little more difficult to hold together than in the past; whether that bridge between their interests and daily life became a little more difficult to traverse as the years passed. He fell into a momentary fit of silence. Marcia leaned towards him.

"Reginald," she said, "do you know, there was something I wanted to ask you this evening. Shall I ask it now?"

"If you will, dear."

She paused for a moment. The matter had seemed so easy and reasonable when she had revolved it in her mind, yet at this moment of broaching it, she realized, not for the first time, how different he was from other men; how difficult a nameless something about his environment 

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