appointed to the 'Africa,' on the Mediterranean station. I hate traveling alone. Poor Dennison, who commanded her, died of a few days' fever off the coast of Calabria,—caught it shooting in some marshes, and——"

The entrance of Deering interrupted him.

"How do, Glynn? You still here, Verner?" He took no notice of Lady Frances or his son.

"Yes, I want to see the review to-morrow, and will start by the Lyons train at night," said Verner, in an apologetic tone.

Deering threw himself into an easy-chair, exclaiming, "It is getting insufferably hot here. Could you manage to start on Tuesday night instead of Thursday morning?"—to his wife.

"I should think so."

"Then pray make your arrangements. I say, Glynn, things look very shaky in Spain. There will be a tremendous fall in Spanish bonds."

"They will recover, if one can hold on. In fact, if a fellow can afford to wait, it would not be a bad plan to buy now," returned Glynn.

Here Deering's valet brought his master some brandy-and-soda, with a due amount of ice, a refreshment which both Verner and Glynn declined.

Travers Deering was tall, but not so tall as Glynn, more conventionally distinguished-looking, with regular aristocratic features, steel-grey eyes, and nut-brown hair and moustaches. He was, on the whole, a popular man, and bestowed a good deal of carefully veiled cultivation on his popularity. He was considered rather the type of a proud, manly, English country gentleman of a fairly clean life, though no saint, and a little martyrized by being tied to so cold and impenetrable a wife. Servants, and insignificant people of that description, whispered that the steel-grey eyes could flash with baleful fire, and that Lady Frances had grown colder and stiller since the deformity and delicacy of her only child had become perceptible and hopeless; while Mr. Deering never stayed at Denham alone with her.

Glynn was conscious of an unaccountable sense of relief when Deering expressed a desire to quit Paris, even sooner than he had at first intended.

It was absurd to imagine that any evil could arise out of a mere passing admiration; it could be nothing more, for a handsome stranger. Yet the expression of Deering's eyes, the uneasiness, wonder, fire, all commingled, which had so impressed him, flashed back vividly across his memory with undiminished disturbing force. But Deering was talking.

"I have been round Count de Latour's stables this morning. Have you seen them, Glynn? They are worth a visit. His stud-groom and head men are all English. I am very much inclined to back his chestnut, 'Bar-le-duc,' for the Derby. He's a splendid horse, only, of course, it isn't always blood or breeding that wins. There were a couple of Americans looking through the stables at the same time, who seemed deucedly wide awake, and inclined to back both 'Bar-le-duc' and a filly, 'Etoile d'Auvergne,' about which I am not so sure. I have met one of them, Vandervoort, in London, do you know him?"

Glynn said he thought he did. The talk became, for a few minutes, of the Turf—turfy. And while it went on the boy rose, and followed by his mother, who covered his retreat, noiselessly left the room. Glynn, looking at Deering at this moment, caught an expression of malignant dislike in his eyes towards his deformed son, or his wife, or both, which surprised and revolted him. It was instantaneous, and he continued to talk lightly and pleasantly, till Glynn rose to bid Lady Frances good-morning.

Verner left the room at the same time, and the two men walked towards the Place de la Concorde together.

"Pity that poor boy is a cripple," said Glynn, speaking out of his thoughts. "I fancy Deering is a good deal cut up about it."

"I don't know about Deering, nor do I care much," returned Captain Verner, bluntly; "but it has been a desperate grief to the mother. Why, when we were children together—ay, and after—Lady Frances was the life of us all. I never saw a girl with so much go in her; and now!"—he broke off expressively. "However, no one can help her," he added, after a moment; and then quickly turning the subject, began to talk of French politics, till they reached the corner of the Champs Elysées, where they paused to see the Empress drive by. There Verner turned back to keep an engagement, and Glynn strolled on slowly to his hotel, resolutely resisting a strong temptation to call and inquire for Miss Lambert. Indeed, with the help of a good deal of letter-writing and interviews with sundry personages of financial importance, Glynn contrived to keep his mind free from imaginative pictures and irresistible suggestions. He was not going to make a fool of himself, or of any one else, either; he was too old and experienced to be carried away by a romantic encounter, or the liquid loveliness of a pair of lustrous, dreamy, dark-blue eyes. "What eyes they are!" he thought, as he sat at his second déjeuné, on Sunday morning, three whole days since he had enjoyed the hospitality of his quondam comrade of the Californian episode. "Mere civility demands that I should call. I think I have been under fire often enough to stand this last fusillade without flinching; besides, the whole thing is deucedly curious." So, after looking in at Gaglinane's, and reading the English papers, Glynn found himself on his way to the Rue de L'Evêque.

The perfume of orange-blossoms which came forth from the opening door greeted him like the prelude of delight, so vividly did it remind him of the pleasant hours to which his first visit was an introduction.

"Yes, monsieur was at home, and mademoiselle also," and the servant, opening a different door from that through which she had ushered him on the former occasion, spoke to some one within, and immediately Lambert himself, in a gorgeous dressing-gown, a fez on his head, and a cigarette in his mouth, came forth to greet him.

"Glynn, come along into my den here. I thought you had left for some other diggings. I was going to look you up to-day. I've not had a moment I could call my own since we parted!" While he spoke he ushered his visitor into a small, very small room, containing a large knee-hole table loaded with letters, newspapers, small account-books, and all appliances for writing, and two very comfortable circular-chairs. These articles of furniture scarcely left room to move. A looking-glass, surmounted by a couple of revolvers, completed the decorations. A dim light was admitted by a long, narrow stained-glass window; and a second door, which stood open, led into a comfortably furnished dining-room.

"This is my Cabinet de travaille," said Lambert, wheeling round one of the chairs; "and I am just taking an hour or two from the Sabbath to clear up some little arrears of work. Where have you been all these days?"

"Very busy, or I should have paid my respects to you and Miss Lambert sooner."

"To be sure, to be sure, you are in business yourself. Anything in the book-making way? I think I remember you had a fair notion as to the value of a horse."

"No; mine is a more sober system of gambling."

"Aha! the share market! I could give you a hint or two about that new steamship company they are getting up in Hamburg."

"Thank you, my hands are pretty full already."

After a little further conversation on financial and sporting topics while Lambert was putting his papers together with some degree of rough order, he proposed to join his daughter.

"She was out to mass with her friends the Davilliers, and had breakfast with them; I have scarcely seen her this morning." So saying, he rose and led Glynn through the dining-room to an arched doorway, across which a curtain of rich dark stuff was drawn, and lifting it cried, "Are you there, my jewel? I have brought Mr. Glynn to see you."

"Come in," said a voice; and as he entered Glynn saw Miss Lambert advancing from an open window to meet him.

The room into which he had been ushered was small, though larger than the minute apartment