Her invitation to dine, couched in the usual friendly words, had been the first move in that game commonly called "bluff." Claude de Chauxville's acceptance of the same had been the second move. And these two persons, who were not afraid of each other, shook hands with a pleasant smile of greeting, while Paul hurried toward them through the busy streets.

"Am I forgiven--that I am invited to dinner?" asked De Chauxville imperturbably, when the servant had left them alone.

Etta was one of those women who are conscious of their dress. Some may protest that a lady moving in such circles would not be so. But in all circles women are only women, and in every class of life we meet such as Etta Bamborough. Women who, while they talk, glance down and rearrange a flower or a piece of lace. It is a mere habit, seemingly small and unimportant; but it marks the woman and sets her apart.

Etta was standing on the hearthrug, beautifully dressed--too beautifully dressed, it is possible, to sit down. Her maid had a moment earlier confessed that she could do no more, and Etta had come down stairs a vision of luxury, of womanly loveliness. Nevertheless, there appeared to be something amiss. She was so occupied with a flower at her shoulder that she did not answer at once.

"Forgiven for what?" she asked at length, in that preoccupied tone of voice which tells wise men that only questions of dress will be considered.

De Chauxville shrugged his shoulders in his graceful Gallic way.

"Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed. "For a crime which requires no excuse, and no explanation other than a mirror."

She looked up at him innocently.

"A mirror?"

"Yours. Have you forgiven me for falling in love with you? It is, I am told, a crime that women sometimes condone."

"It was no crime," she said. She had heard the wheels of Paul's carriage. "It was a misfortune. Please let us forget that it ever happened."

De Chauxville twirled his neat mustache, looking keenly at her the while.

"You forget," he said. "But I--will remember."

She did not answer, but turned with a smile to greet Paul.

"I think you know each other," she said gracefully when she had shaken hands, and the two men bowed. They were foreigners, be it understood.

There were three languages in which they could understand each other with equal ease.

"Where _is_ Maggie?" exclaimed Mrs. Bamborough. "She is always late."

"When I am here," reflected De Chauxville. But he did not say it.

Miss Delafield kept them waiting a few minutes, and during that time Etta Sydney Bamborough gave a very fine display of prowess with the double-stringed bow. When a man attempts to handle this delicate weapon, he usually makes, if one may put it thus crudely, an ass of himself. He generally succeeds in snapping one and probably both of the strings, injuring himself most certainly in the process.

Not so, however, this clever lady. She had a smile and an epigram for Claude de Chauxville, a grave air of sympathetic interest in more serious affairs for Paul Alexis. She was bright and amusing, guileless and very worldly wise in the same breath--simple for Paul and a match for De Chauxville, within the space of three seconds. Withal she was a beautiful woman beautifully dressed. A thousand times too wise to scorn her womanhood, as learned fools are prone to do in print and on platform in these wordy days, but wielding the strongest power on earth, to wit, that same womanhood, with daring and with skill. A learned woman is not of much account in the world. A clever woman moves as much of it as lies in her neighborhood--that is to say, as much as she cares to rule. For women love power, but they do not care to wield it at a distance.

Paul was asked to take Mrs. Sydney Bamborough down to dinner by the lady herself.

"Mon ami," she said in a quiet aside to De Chauxville, before making her request, "it is the first time the prince dines here."

She spoke in French. Maggie and Paul were talking together at the other end of the room. De Chauxville bowed in silence.

At dinner the conversation was necessarily general, and, as such, is not worth reporting. No general conversation, one finds, is of much value when set down in black and white. It is not even grammatical nowadays.

To be more correct, let us note that the talk lay between Etta and M. de Chauxville, who had a famous supply of epigrams and bright nothings delivered in such a way that they really sounded like wisdom. Etta was equal to him, sometimes capping his sharp wit, sometimes contenting herself with silvery laughter. Maggie Delafield was rather distraite, as De Chauxville noted. The girl's dislike for him was an iron that entered the quick of his vanity anew every time he saw her. There was no petulance in the aversion, such as he had perceived with other maidens who were only resenting a passing negligence or seeking to pique his curiosity. This was a steady and, if you will, unmaidenly aversion, which Maggie conscientiously attempted to conceal.

Paul, it is to be feared, was what hostesses call heavy in hand. He laughed where he saw something to laugh at, but not elsewhere, which in some circles is considered morose and in bad form. He joined readily enough in the conversation, but originated nothing. Those topics which occupied his mind did not present themselves as suitable to this occasion. His devotion to Etta was quite obvious, and he was simple enough not to care that it should be so.

Maggie was by turns quite silent and very talkative. When Paul and Etta were speaking together she never looked at them, but fixedly at her own plate, at a decanter, or a salt-cellar. When she spoke she addressed her remarks--valueless enough in themselves--exclusively to the man she disliked, Claude de Chauxville.

There was something amiss in the pretty little room. There were shadows seated around that pretty little table a quatre, beside the guests in their pretty dresses and their black coats; silent cold shadows, who ate nothing, while they chilled the dainty food and took the sweetness from the succulent dishes. These shadows had crept in unawares, a silent partie carree, to take their phantom places at the table, and only Etta seemed able to jostle hers aside and talk it down. She took the whole burden of the conversation upon her pretty shoulders, and bore it through the little banquet with unerring skill and unflinching good humor. In the midst of her merriest laughter, the clever gray eyes would flit from one man's face to the other. Paul had been brought here to ask her to marry him. Claude de Chauxville had been invited that he might be tacitly presented to his successful rival. Maggie was there because she was a woman and made the necessary fourth. Puppets all, and two of them knew it. And some of us know it all our lives. We are living, moving puppets. We let ourselves be dragged here and pushed there, the victim of one who happens to have more energy of mind, a greater steadfastness of purpose, a keener grasp of the situation called life. We smirk and smile, and lose the game because we have begun by being anvils, and are afraid of trying to be hammers.

But Etta Sydney Bamborough had to deal with metal of a harder grain than the majority of us. Claude de Chauxville was for the moment forced to assume the humble role of anvil because he had no choice. Maggie Delafield was passive for the time being, because that which would make her active was no more than a tiny seedling in her heart. The girl bid fair to be one of those women who develop late, who ripen slowly, like the best fruit.

During the drive to the opera house the two women in Etta's snug little brougham were silent. Etta had her thoughts to occupy her. She was at the crucial point of a difficult game. She could not afford to allow even a friend to see so much as the corners of the cards she held.

In the luxurious box it was easily enough arranged--Etta and Paul together in front, De Chauxville and Maggie at the other corner of the box.

"I have asked my friend Karl Steinmetz to come in during the evening,"

said Paul to Etta when they were seated. "He is anxious to make your acquaintance. He is my--prime minister over in Russia."

Etta smiled graciously.

"It is kind of him," she answered, "to be anxious to make my acquaintance."

She was apparently listening to the music; in reality she was hurrying back mentally over half a dozen years. She had never had much to do with the stout German philosopher, but she knew enough of him to scorn the faint hope that he might have forgotten her name and her individuality.

Etta Bamborough had never been disconcerted in her life yet; this incident came very near to bringing about the catastrophe.

"At what time," she asked, "is he coming in?"

"About half-past nine."

Etta had a watch on a bracelet on her arm. Such women always know the time.

It was a race, and Etta won it. She had only half an hour. De Chauxville was there, and Maggie with her quiet, honest eyes. But the widow of Sydney Bamborough made Paul ask her to be his wife, and she promised to give him his answer later. She did it despite a thousand difficulties and more than one danger--accomplished it with, as the sporting people say, plenty to spare--before the door behind them was opened by the attendant, and Karl Steinmetz, burly, humorously imperturbable and impenetrable, stood smiling gravely on the situation.

He saw Claude de Chauxville, and before the Frenchman had turned round the expression on Steinmetz's large and placid countenance had changed from the self-consciousness usually preceding an introduction to one of a dim recognition.

"I have had the pleasure of meeting madame somewhere before, I think. In St. Petersburg, was it not?"

Etta, composed and smiling, said that it was so, and introduced him to Maggie. De Chauxville took the opportunity of leaving that young lady's side, and placing himself near enough to Paul and Etta to completely frustrate any further attempts at confidential conversation.

For a moment Steinmetz and Paul were left standing together.

"I have had a telegram," said Steinmetz in Russian. "We must go back to Tver. There is cholera again. When can you come?"

Beneath his heavy mustache Paul bit his lip.

"In three days," he answered.

"True? You will come with me?" enquired Steinmetz, under cover of the clashing music.

"Of course."

Steinmetz looked at him curiously. He glanced toward Etta, but he said nothing.