“Go, Chu-chu, and ask Angele to dance with you.  She is being left to bore herself while Victor dances with Constance.  Moreover, I desire to afflict Monsieur Martin with my confidences.”

With the utmost docility Benouville effaced himself.

“Eh, bien, Monsieur Duchemin!”

“Eh, bien, madame la comtesse?” Liane sipped at her champagne, making impudent eyes at Lanyard over the brim of her glass.

“By what appears, you have at last torn yourself away from the charming society of the Chateau de Montalais.”

“As you see.”

“That was a long visit you made at the chateau, my old one?”

“Madame la comtesse is well informed,” Lanyard returned, phlegmatic.

“One hears what one hears.”

“One had the misfortune to fall foul of an assassin,” Lanyard took the trouble to explain.

“An assassin!”

“The same Apache who attacked—­with others—­the party from Montalais at Montpellier-le-Vieux.”

“And you were wounded?”

Lanyard assented.  The lady made a shocked face and uttered appropriate noises.  “As you know,” Lanyard added.

Liane Delorme pretended not to hear that last.  “And the ladies of the chateau,” she enquired—­“they were sympathetic, one feels sure?”

“They were most kind.”

“It was not serious, this wound—­no?”

“Mademoiselle may judge when she knows I was unable to leave my bed for nearly three weeks.”

“But what atrocity!  And this Apache—?”

“Remains at large.”

“Ah, these police!” And the lady described a sign of contempt that was wholly unladylike.  “Still, you are well recovered, by the way you dance.”

“One cannot complain.”

“What an experience!  Still—­” Liane again buried her nose in her glass and regarded Lanyard with a look of mysterious understanding.  Re-emerging, she resumed:  “Still, not without its compensations, eh, mon ami?”

“That is as one regards it, mademoiselle.”

“Oh! oh!” There was any amount of deep significance in these exclamations.  “One may regard that in more ways than one.”

“Indeed,” Lanyard agreed with his most winning manner:  “One may for instance remember that I recovered speedily enough to be in Paris to-night and meet mademoiselle without losing time.”

“Monsieur wishes me to flatter myself into thinking he did me the honour of desiring to find me to-night?”

“Or any other.  Do not depreciate the potency of your charms, mademoiselle.  Who, having seen you once, could help hoping to see you again?”

“My friend,” said Liane, with a pursed, judgmatical mouth, “I think you are much too amiable.”

“But I assure you, never a day has passed, no, nor yet a night, that I have not dwelt upon the thought of you, since you made so effective an entrance to the chateau, a vision of radiant beauty, out of that night of tempest and fury.”