"No; I never hear Russian gossip. I know no one in St. Petersburg, and few in Moscow."

She gave a little sigh of relief.

"Then perhaps poor Sydney's delinquencies have been forgotten," she said. "In six months every thing is forgotten now. He has only been dead six months, you know. He died in Russia."

All the while she was watching his face. She had moved in a circle where everything is known--where men have faces of iron and nerves of steel to conceal what they know. She could hardly believe that Paul Alexis knew so little as he pretended.

"So I heard a month ago," he said.

In a flash of thought Etta remembered that it was only within the last four weeks that this admirer had betrayed his admiration. Could this be that phenomenon of the three-volume novel, an honorable man? She looked at him with curiosity--without, it is to be feared, much respect.

"And now," she said cheerfully, "let us change the subject. I have inflicted enough of myself and my affairs upon you for one day. Tell me about yourself. Why were you in Russia last summer?"

"I am half a Russian," he answered. "My mother was Russian, and I have estates there."

Her surprise was a triumph of art.

"Oh! You are not Prince Pavlo Alexis?" she exclaimed.

"Yes, I am."

She rose and swept him a deep courtesy, to the full advantage of her beautiful figure.

"My respects--mon prince," she said; and then, quick as lightning, for she had seen displeasure on his face, she broke into a merry laugh.

"No, I won't call you that; for I know you hate it. I have heard of your prejudices, and if it is of the slightest interest to you, I think I rather admire them."

It is to be presumed that Mrs. Sydney Bamborough's memory was short. For it was a matter of common knowledge in the diplomatic circles in which she moved that Mr. Paul Howard Alexis of Piccadilly House, London, and Prince Pavlo Alexis of the province of Tver, were one and the same man.

Having, however, fully established this fact, from the evidence of her own ears, she conversed very pleasantly and innocently upon matters, Russian and English, until other visitors arrived and Paul withdrew.

CHAPTER V

THE BARON

Among the visitors whom Paul left behind him in the little drawing-room in Brook Street was the Baron Claude de Chauxville, Baron of Chauxville and Chauxville le Duc, in the Province of Seine-et-Marne, France, attache to the French Embassy to the Court of St. James; before men a rising diplomatist, before God a scoundrel. This gentleman remained when the other visitors had left, and Miss Maggie Delafield, seeing his intention of prolonging a visit of which she had already had sufficient, made an inadequate excuse and left the room.

Miss Delafield, being a healthy-minded young English person of that simplicity which is no simplicity at all, but merely simple-heartedness, had her own ideas of what a man should be, and M. de Chauxville had the misfortune to fall short of those ideas. He was too epigrammatic for her, and beneath the brilliancy of his epigram she felt at times the presence of something dark and nauseous. Her mental attitude toward him was contemptuous and perfectly polite. With the reputation of possessing a dangerous fascination--one of those reputations which can only emanate from the man himself--M. de Chauxville neither fascinated nor intimidated Miss Delafield. He therefore disliked her intensely. His vanity was colossal, and when a Frenchman is vain he is childishly so.

M. de Chauxville watched the door close behind Miss Delafield with a queer smile. Then he turned suddenly on his heels and faced Mrs. Sydney Bamborough.

"Your cousin," he said, "is a typical Englishwoman--she only conceals her love."

"For you?" enquired Mrs. Sydney Bamborough.

The baron shrugged his shoulders.

"Possibly. One can never tell. She conceals it very well if it exists.

However, I am indifferent. The virtue of the violet is its own reward, perhaps, for the rose always wins."

He crossed the room toward Mrs. Sydney Bamborough, who was standing near the mantelpiece. Her left hand was hanging idly by her side. He took the white fingers and gallantly raised them to his lips, but before they had reached that fount of truth and wisdom she jerked her hand away.

M. de Chauxville laughed--the quiet, assured laugh of a man who has read in books that he who is bold enough can win any woman, and believes it.

He was of those men who treat and speak of women as a class--creatures to be dealt with successfully according to generality and maxim. It is a singular thing, by the way, that men as a whole continue to disbelieve in a woman's negative--singular, that is, when one reflects that the majority of men have had at least one negative which has remained a negative, so far as they were concerned, all the woman's life.

"I am aware," said M. de Chauxville, "that the rose has thorns. One reason why the violet is hors de concours."

Etta smiled--almost relenting. She was never quite safe against her own vanity. Happy the woman who is, and rare.

"I suspect that the violet is innocent of any desire to enter into competition," said Etta.

"Knowing," suggested De Chauxville, "that although the race is not always to the swift, it is usually so. Please do not stand. It suggests that you are waiting for me to go or for some one else to come."

"Neither."

"Then prove it by taking this chair. Thus. Near the fire, for it is quite an English spring. A footstool. Is it permitted to admire your slippers--what there is of them? Now you look comfortable."

He attended to her wants, divined them, and perhaps created them with a perfect grace and much too intimate a knowledge. As a carpet knight he was faultless. And Etta thought of Paul, who could do none of these things--or would do none of them--Paul, who never made her feel like a doll.

"Will you not sit down?" she said, indicating a chair, which he did not take. He selected one nearer to her.

"I can think of nothing more desirable."

"Than what?" she asked. Her vanity was like a hungry fish. It rose to everything.

"A chair in this room."

"A modest desire," she said. "Is that really all you want in this world?"

"No," he answered, looking at her.

She gave a little laugh and moved rather hurriedly.

"I was going to suggest that you could have both at certain fixed periods--whenever--I am out."

"I am glad you did not suggest it."

"Why?" she asked sharply.

"Because I should have had to go into explanations. I did not say all."

Mrs. Bamborough was looking into the fire, only half listening to him.

There was something in the nature of a duel between these two. Each thought more of the next stroke than of the present party.

"Do you ever say all, M. de Chauxville?" she asked.