of that prince of gentlemen, dear Monsieur John himself.  No man of questionable blood dare set his foot within the door.  Many noble gentlemen were pleased to dance with her.  Colonel De ——­ and General La ——­:  city councilmen and officers from the Government House.  There were no paid dancers then.  Every thing was decorously conducted indeed!  Every girl’s mother was there, and the more discreet always left before there was too much drinking.  Yes, it was gay, gay!—­but sometimes dangerous.  Ha! more times than a few had Monsieur John knocked down some long-haired and long-knifed rowdy, and kicked the breath out of him for looking saucily at her; but that was like him, he was so brave and kind;—­and he is gone!

There was no room for widow’s weeds there.  So when she put these on, her glittering eyes never again looked through her pink and white mask, and she was glad of it; for never, never in her life had they so looked for anybody but her dear Monsieur John, and now he was in heaven—­so the priest said—­and she was a sick-nurse.

Living was hard work; and, as Madame John had been brought up tenderly, and had done what she could to rear her daughter in the same mistaken way, with, of course, no more education than the ladies in society got, they knew nothing beyond a little music and embroidery.  They struggled as they could, faintly; now giving a few private dancing lessons, now dressing hair, but ever beat back by the steady detestation of their imperious patronesses; and, by and by, for want of that priceless worldly grace known among the flippant as “money-sense,” these two poor children, born of misfortune and the complacent badness of the times, began to be in want.

Kristian Koppig noticed from his dormer window one day a man standing at the big archway opposite, and clanking the brass knocker on the wicket that was in one of the doors.  He was a smooth man, with his hair parted in the middle, and his cigarette poised on a tiny gold holder.  He waited a moment, politely cursed the dust, knocked again, threw his slender sword-cane under his arm, and wiped the inside of his hat with his handkerchief.

Madame John held a parley with him at the wicket.  ’Tite Poulette was nowhere seen.  He stood at the gate while Madame John went up-stairs.  Kristian Koppig knew him.  He knew him as one knows a snake.  He was the manager of the Salle de Conde.  Presently Madame John returned with a little bundle, and they hurried off together.

And now what did this mean?  Why, by any one of ordinary acuteness the matter was easily understood, but, to tell the truth, Kristian Koppig was a trifle dull, and got the idea at once that some damage was being planned against ’Tite Poulette.  It made the gentle Dutchman miserable not to be minding his own business, and yet—­