quick, Miss Gilmore."
"I am not so quick as Madame," I retorted; "because she has got these proofs within the last hour.  It is nothing to me, of course; but I don't think we are getting on so quickly to an understanding as we might."
"You know that I am my brother's friend as well as Madame's in this?"
"What does that mean?"
"In regard to the marriage on which my brother's heart is so deeply set.  You are willing to help it also?"
"How can it concern me?  What for instance would happen to me if I were not?"  I paused and then added, significantly: "And what also if I were?"
"I think we shall arrive at a satisfactory understanding," he answered, with obvious relief.  "Those who help my family--a very powerful and influential one, I may remind you--are sure to secure a great measure of our favour."
"I desire nothing more than that," said I, with the earnestness of truth--although the favour which I needed was not perhaps in his thoughts.
"Madame would of course like to know a good deal about all who co-operate with her," he declared, very smoothly and suggestively.
"What do you wish to know about me; and what do you wish me to do?"
"Americans are very direct," he replied, bowing.  "She would leave you to tell us what you please, of course, and afford such means as you think best for her to make inquiries."
"Every one in Jefferson City knew my uncle, John P. Gilmore, knows that he educated me, and that what little money he left came to me.  My father was a failure in life, and my mother died when I was a little child.  I'm afraid I haven't made much history so far.  And that's about all there is to it.  What matters to me is not the past but the present and, perhaps, the future."
"You have no friends in Pesth?"
"None, unless you count General von Erlanger; I was his children's governess and used to play chess with him."
"And your motive in coming here?"  There was a glint in his eyes I did not understand.
"I thought I had told you.  I am a student in the University."
"That is all?" I laughed.  "Oh no, indeed it isn't.  I am just looking around to shake hands with any opportunity that chances to come my way.  I am a soldieress of fortune.  That's why I came to Madame d'Artelle.  Not to study folk lore."
"In Paris you were not a student?"
"Oh, you mean I was better off then?  My uncle Gilmore was alive; and we all thought he was rich."
"Pardon my inquisitiveness yet further.  You know New York well?"  This was the scent, then.
"I know Fifth Avenue, have walked about Broadway, and once stood in a whirl of amazement on Brooklyn Bridge.  But I haven't a friend in the whole city."
"Were you there five years ago?" I affected to search my memory.  "That would be in ninety-five.  I was eighteen.  I have been about so much in the States that my flying 

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