“The prince,” continued De Chauxville, turning to Paul, “is a great sportsman, I am told—­a mighty hunter.  I wonder why Englishmen always want to kill something.”

Paul smiled, without making an immediate answer.  He was not the man to be led into the danger of repartee by such as De Chauxville.

“We have a few bears left,” he said.

“You are fortunate,” protested De Chauxville.  “I shot one when I was younger.  I was immensely afraid, and so was the bear.  I have a great desire to try again.”

Etta glanced at Paul, who returned De Chauxville’s bland gaze with all the imperturbability of a prince.

The countess’s cackling voice broke in at this juncture, as perhaps De Chauxville had intended it to do.

“Then why not come and shoot ours?” she said.  “We have quite a number of them in the forests at Thors.”

“Ah, Mme. la Comtesse,” he answered, with outspread, deprecatory hands, “but that would be taking too great an advantage of your hospitality and your well-known kindness.”

He turned to Catrina, who received him with a half-concealed frown.  The countess bridled and looked at her daughter with obvious maternal meaning, as one who was saying, “There—­you bungled your prince, but I have procured you a baron.”

“The abuse of hospitality is the last refuge of the needy,” continued De Chauxville oracularly.  “But my temptation is strong; shall I yield to it, mademoiselle?”

Catrina smiled unwillingly.

“I would rather leave it to your own conscience,” she said.  “But I fail to see the danger you anticipate.”

“Then I accept, madame,” said De Chauxville, with the engaging frankness which ever had a false ring in it.

If the whole affair had been prearranged in Claude de Chauxville’s mind, it certainly succeeded more fully than is usually the case with human schemes.  If, on the other hand, this invitation was the result of chance, Fortune had favored Claude de Chauxville beyond his deserts.

The little scene had played itself out before the eyes of Paul, who did not want it; of Etta, who desired it; and of Catrina, who did not exactly know what she wanted, with the precision of a stage-play carefully rehearsed.

Claude de Chauxville had unscrupulously made use of feminine vanity with all the skill that was his.  A little glance toward Etta, as he accepted the invitation, conveyed to her the fact that she was the object of his clever little plot; that it was in order to be near her that he had forced the Countess Lanovitch to invite him to Thors; and Etta, with all her shrewdness, was promptly hoodwinked.  Vanity is a handicap assigned to clever women by Fate, who handicaps us all without appeal.  De Chauxville saw by a little flicker of the eyelids that he had not missed his mark.  He had hit Etta where his knowledge of her told him she was unusually vulnerable.  He had made one ally.  The countess he looked upon with a wise contempt.  She was easier game than Etta.  Catrina he understood well enough.  Her rugged simplicity had betrayed her secret to him before he had been five minutes in the room.  Paul he despised as a man lacking finesse and esprit—­a truly French form of contempt.  For Frenchmen have yet to learn that such qualities have remarkably little to do with love.