But here the sight which greeted my eyes fully compensated me for the temporary humiliation, for on the threshold stood a gentleman who had wealth written plainly upon his fine clothes, upon the dainty linen at his throat and wrists, upon the quality of his rich satin necktie and the perfect set of his fine cloth pantaloons, which were of an exquisite shade of dove-grey.  When, then, the apparition spoke, inquiring with just a sufficiency of aristocratic hauteur whether M. Hector Ratichon were in, you cannot be surprised, my dear Sir, that my dejection fell from me like a cast-off mantle and that all my usual urbanity of manner returned to me as I informed the elegant gentleman that M. Ratichon was even now standing before him, and begged him to take the trouble to pass through into my office.

This he did, and I placed a chair in position for him.  He sat down, having previously dusted the chair with a graceful sweep of his lace-edged handkerchief.  Then he raised a gold-rimmed eyeglass to his right eye with a superlatively elegant gesture, and surveyed me critically for a moment or two ere he said: 

“I am told, my good M. Ratichon, that you are a trustworthy fellow, and one who is willing to undertake a delicate piece of business for a moderate honorarium.”

Except for the fact that I did not like the word “moderate,” I was enchanted with him.

“Rumour for once has not lied, Monsieur,” I replied in my most attractive manner.

“Well,” he rejoined—­I won’t say curtly, but with businesslike brevity, “for all purposes connected with the affair which I desire to treat with you my name, as far as you are concerned, shall be Jean Duval.  Understand?”

“Perfectly, Monsieur le Marquis,” I replied with a bland smile.

It was a wild guess, but I don’t think that I underestimated my new client’s rank, for he did not wince.

“You know Mlle. Mars?” he queried.

“The actress?” I replied.  “Perfectly.”

“She is playing in Le Reve at the Theatre Royal just now.”

“She is.”

“In the first and third acts of the play she wears a gold bracelet set with large green stones.”

“I noticed it the other night.  I had a seat in the parterre, I may say.”

“I want that bracelet,” broke in the soi-disant Jean Duval unceremoniously.  “The stones are false, the gold strass.  I admire Mlle. Mars immensely.  I dislike seeing her wearing false jewellery.  I wish to have the bracelet copied in real stones, and to present it to her as a surprise on the occasion of the twenty-fifth performance of Le Reve.  It will cost me a king’s ransom, and her, for the time being, an infinite amount of anxiety.  She sets great store by the valueless trinket solely because of the merit of its design, and I want its disappearance to have every semblance of a theft.  All the greater will be the lovely creature’s pleasure when, at my hands, she will receive an infinitely precious jewel the exact counterpart in all save its intrinsic value of the trifle which she had thought lost.”