lesson must be completed. A partner must be found and at once. He paused--looked about him--started.

“You, Madame!” he ejaculated, checking his astonishment, for Denise was watching him.

“I, Monsieur le Vicomte,” was the serene reply. “This is more fun than spelling the truth from a crystal,” and she laughed wickedly.

Yes, it was indeed the wise woman from “The Cock with the Spurs of Gold,” wearing her diamond cross and dressed in adorably pale blue satin, just such a colour as her eyes covered by the pale blue mask. Strangest of all, André felt at that moment there was not a woman in all this throng who carried herself with more of the true air of the _noblesse_ than did this young sorceress, who plied a charlatan’s trade for hire.

“The Vicomte looks to-night as the Vicomte de Nérac should,” she remarked quietly. “But is it my presence here or is it my perfume that perplexes you?”

And André started again at her unerring divination.

“Surely it is very simple,” she proceeded. “Recall, if you please, a supper party in London--the perfume was there then--now it is here. That is all.”

“What?” He stopped in sheer amazement. “You are that--that woman?”

“Certainly. The same, only a trifle disguised. In London I was dark, in Paris I am fair, because,” she shrugged her shoulders, “I love change and I hate being recognised unless I choose. You will not betray my secret, will you?”

“No. But why are you in Paris?”

“Women like myself,” she answered cynically, “are always dying of _ennui_, and I was born a Parisienne. Can a Parisienne live without Paris? Well, I cannot. London, _mon Dieu!_ Those suffocating English! They make love as they eat beef and drink beer. Their women are prudes, their men heavy as bull-dogs made of lead. London is a _ville de province_--no wit, no ideas, no life. Here,” she pointed with her fan, “it is far different. Where will you find the like of that for gaiety of heart, and sparkle of the soul? It is the city of breeding, of philosophers, of poets, of chivalry, and of lovers. Why, that grisette over there can be more _spirituelle_ than an Englishman of genius. And when even the lovers who make love with ardour and in couplets that sing of themselves become annoying I go elsewhere.”

André listened with a puzzled delight. It was not the perfume--it was 

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