Whatever this girl's joys or sorrows may have been--and pray you, madam, remember that no man ever knows his neighbor's heart!--she succeeded as well as any in concealing both. There are some women who tell one just enough about themselves to prove that they can understand and sympathize. Maggie was of these; but she told no more.

She was alone when Paul came into the room. It was a large room, with more than one fire-place. Maggie was reading, and she did not look round. Paul stopped--warming himself by the fire nearest to the door. He was the sort of man to come into a room without any remark.

Maggie looked up for a moment, glancing at the wood fire. She seemed to know for certain that it was Paul.

"Have you been out?" she asked.

"Yes--calling."

He came toward her, standing beside her with his hands clasped behind his back, looking into the fire.

"Socially," he said, with a quiet humor, "I am not a success."

Her book dropped upon her knees, her two hands crossed upon its pages.

She stared at the glowing logs as if his thoughts were written there.

"I do not want to give way," he went on, "to a habit of morbid introspection, but socially I am a horrid failure."

There was a little smile on the girl's face, not caused by his grave humor. It would appear that she was smiling at something beyond that--something only visible to her own mental vision.

"Perhaps you do not try," she suggested practically.

"Oh, yes, I do. I try in several languages. I have no small-talk."

"You see," she said gravely, "you are a large man."

"Does that make any difference?" he asked simply.

She turned and looked at him as he towered by her side--looked at him with a queer smile.

"Yes," she answered, "I think so."

For some moments they remained thus without speaking--in a peaceful silence. Although the room was very large, it was peaceful. What is it, by the way, that brings peace to the atmosphere of a room, of a whole house sometimes? It can only be something in the individuality of some person in it. We talk glibly of the comfort of being settled--the peacefulness, the restfulness of it. Some people, it would appear, are always settled--of settled convictions, settled mind, settled purpose.

Paul Howard Alexis was perhaps such a person.

At all events, the girl sitting in the low chair by his side seemed to be under some such influence, seemed to have escaped the unrest which is said to live in palaces.

When she spoke it was with a quiet voice, as one having plenty of time and leisure.

"Where have you been?" she asked practically. Maggie was always practical.

"To the Lanovitches', where we met the Baron de Chauxville."

"Ah!"

"Why--ah?"

"Because I dislike the Baron de Chauxville," answered Maggie in her decisive way.

"I am glad of that--because I hate him!" said Paul. "Have you any reason for your dislike?"

Miss Delafield had a reason, but it was not one that she could mention to Paul. So she gracefully skirted the question.

"He has the same effect upon me as snails," she explained airily.

Then, as if to salve her conscience, she gave the reason, but disguised, so that he did not recognize it.

"I have seen more of M. de Chauxville than you have," she said gravely.

"He is one of those men of whom women do see more. When men are present he loses confidence, like a cur when a thoroughbred terrier is about. He dislikes you. I should take care to give M. de Chauxville a wide berth if I were you, Paul."

She had risen, after glancing at the clock. She turned down the page of her book, and looking up suddenly, met his eyes, for a moment only.

"We are not likely to drop into a close friendship," said Paul. "But--he is coming to Thors, twenty miles from Osterno."

There was a momentary look of anxiety in the girl's eyes, which she turned away to hide.

"I am sorry for that," she said. "Does Herr Steinmetz know it?"

"Not yet."

Maggie paused for a moment. She was tracing with the tip of her finger a pattern stamped on the binding of the book. It would seem that she had something more to say. Then suddenly she went away without saying it.

In the meantime Claude de Chauxville had gently led the Countess Lanovitch to invite him to stay to dinner. He accepted the invitation with becoming reluctance, and returned to the Hotel de Berlin, where he was staying, in order to dress. He was fully alive to the expediency of striking while the iron is hot--more especially where women are concerned. Moreover, his knowledge of the countess led him to fear that she would soon tire of his society. This lady had a lamentable facility for getting to the bottom of her friends' powers of entertainment within a few days. It was De Chauxville's intention to make secure his invitation to Thors, and then to absent himself from the countess.

At dinner he made himself vastly agreeable, recounting many anecdotes fresh from Paris, which duly amused the Countess Lanovitch, and somewhat shocked Catrina, who was not advanced or inclined to advance.

After dinner the guest asked Mlle. Catrina to play. He opened the grand piano in the inner drawing-room with such gallantry and effusion that the sanguine countess, post-prandially somnolescent in her luxurious chair, began rehearsing different modes of mentioning her son-in-law, the baron.

"Yes," she muttered to herself, "and Catrina is plain--terribly plain."

Thereupon she fell asleep.

De Chauxville had a good memory, and was, moreover, a good and capable liar. So Catrina did not find out that he knew nothing whatever of music. He watched the plain face as the music rose and fell, himself impervious to its transcendent tones. With practised cunning he waited until Catrina was almost intoxicated with music--an intoxication to which all great musicians are liable.

"Ah!" he said. "I envy you your power. With music like that one can almost imagine that life is what one would wish it to be."

She did not answer, but she wandered off into another air--a slumber song.

"The Schlummerlied," said De Chauxville softly. "It almost has the power to send a sorrow to sleep."

This time she answered him--possibly because he had not looked at her.

"Such never sleep," she said.

"Do you know that, too?" he asked, not in a tone that wanted reply.

She made no answer.

"I am sorry," he went on. "For me it is different, I am a man. I have man's work to do. I can occupy myself with ambition. At all events, I have a man's privilege of nursing revenge."