"You are really American, then?"  
"You bet. From Missouri, Jefferson City: as fine a town in as fine a State as anywhere in the world. Not that I run down these old-world places in Europe. Have you been in the States?"  
"To my regret, no."  
"Ah, then you haven't seen what a city should be. Fine broad straight streets, plenty of air space, and handsome buildings."  
"I know that American women are handsome," he replied, with a look intended to put the compliment on me. But I was not taking any."I guess we reckon looks by the dollar measure, Count.  You should see our girls at home."
"You must regret living away from your country."
"Every man must whittle his own stick, you know, and every woman too. Which means, I have to make my own way."
"You are more than capable, I am sure."
"I can try to plough my own furrow, sure."
"You have come to Pesth for that purpose?"
"Yes--out of the crowd."
"What furrow do you think of ploughing here?"
"Well, just at present I'm in Madame's hands, you see.  And I think we're getting to understand one another, some.  Though whether we're going to continue to pull in the same team much longer seems considerably doubtful."
"I am very anxious to help you, Christabel, dear," put in Madame d'Artelle; and I knew from that "dear," pretty much what was coming.
"It would give me much pleasure to place what influence I have at your disposal, Miss Gilmore."
"I must say I find everybody's real kind," I answered, demurely.
"There is General von Erlanger saying very much the same thing."
"You speak German with an excellent idiom," said the Count, with a pretty sharp look.  "One is tempted to think you have been in Europe often before."
"I laughed.  "I was putting a little American into the accent, Count, as a matter of fact.  I have a knack for languages.  I know Magyar just as well.  And French, and Italian, and a bit of Russian.  I'm a student of comparative folk lore, you know; and I'm getting up Turkish and Servian and Greek."
"But surely you have been much in Europe?"
"I was in Paris three years ago;" and at that Madame d'Artelle looked away.
"So Madame told me," he said, suggestively.  "It was there you met, of course.  It was there you made your mistake about her, I think."
"What mistake was that?"
"That Madame's husband was still alive."
So he was a scoundrel after all, and this was to be the line of tactics.
"Oh, that is to be taken as a mistake, is it?" I said this just as though I were ready to fall in with the suggestion.
"Not taken as a mistake, Miss Gilmore.  It is a mistake.  We have the proofs of his death."
"'We'?" I rapped back so sharply that he winced.
"Madame has confided in me," he replied.
"Well, from all accounts she has not lost much; and must be glad to be free to marry again." His eyes smiled.  "You are very 

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