’aven’t introduced you to my ’usband, Baron Gobelli! Gustave, this is Captain Ralph Pullen, the Colonel’s brother, you know. You must ’ave a talk with ’im after dinner! You two would ’it it off first-rate together! Gustave’s in the boot trade, you know, Captain Pullen! We trade under the name of Fantaisie et Cie! The best boots and shoes in London, and the largest manufactory, I give you my word! You should get your boots from us. I know you dandy officers are awfully particular about your tootsies. If you’ll come and see me in London, I’ll take you over the manufactory, and give you a pair. You’ll never buy any others, once you’ve tried ’em!”

Ralph Pullen bowed again, and said he felt certain that Madame was right and he looked forward to the fulfilment of her promise with the keenest anticipation.

Harriet Brandt meanwhile, sitting almost opposite to the stranger, was regarding him from under the thick lashes of her slumbrous eyes, like a lynx watching its prey. She had never seen so good-looking and aristocratic a young man before. His crisp golden hair and drooping moustaches, his fair complexion, blue eyes and chiselled features, were a revelation to her. Would the Princes whom Madame Gobelli had promised she should meet at her house, be anything like him, she wondered--_could_ they be as handsome, as perfectly dressed, as fashionable, as completely at their ease, as the man before her? Every other moment, she was stealing a veiled glance at him--and Captain Pullen was quite aware of the fact. What young man, or woman, is not aware when they are being furtively admired? Ralph Pullen was one of the most conceited of his sex, which is not saying a little--he was _accomblé_ with female attentions wherever he went, yet he was not _blasé_ with them, so long as he was not called upon to reciprocate in kind. Each time that Harriet’s magnetic gaze sought his face, his eyes by some mystical chance were lifted to meet it, and though all four lids were modestly dropped again, their owners did not forget the effect their encounter had left behind it.

“’Ave you been round Heyst yet, Captain Pullen,” vociferated Madame Gobelli, “and met the Procession? I never saw such rubbish in my life. I laughed fit to burst myself! A lot of children rigged out in blue and white, carrying a doll on a stick, and a crowd of fools following and singing ’ymns. Call that Religion? It’s all tommy rot. Don’t you agree with me, Mrs. Pullen?”

“I cannot say that I do, Madame! I have been taught to respect every religion that is followed with sincerity, whether I agree with its doctrine or not. 

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