“Miss Ledoux,” he said, “pardon me, but as we are about to leave, I must remind you of your promise to show me the new orchid.  I am very fond of orchids.  May I not see it now?”

Opal had made no such promise, but as she looked up at him with an instinctive denial, she met his eyes with an expression in their depths she dared not battle.  There was no knowing what this impetuous Boy might say or do, if goaded too far.

“Please pardon my forgetfulness,” she said, with a propitiating smile, as she took his arm.  “We will go and see it.”

And the Boy smiled.  He had not found his opportunity—­he had made one!

With a malicious smile on his thin, wicked lips the Count de Roannes watched them as they moved across the room toward the conservatory—­this pair so finely matched that all must needs admire.

It was rather amusing in les enfants, he told Ledoux, this “Paul et Virginie” episode.  Somewhat bourgeois, of course—­but harmless, he hoped.  This with an expressive sneer.  But—­mon Dieu!—­and there was a sinister gleam in his evil eyes—­it mustn’t go too far!  The girl was a captivating little witch—­the old father winced at the significance in the tone—­and she must have her fling!  He rather admired her the more for her diablerie—­but she must be careful!

But he need not have feared to-night.  Paul Zalenska’s triumph was short-lived.  When once inside the conservatory, the girl turned and faced him, indignantly.

“What an utterly shameless thing to do!” she exclaimed.

“Why?” he demanded.  “You were not treating me with due respect and ‘self-preservation is the first law of nature,’ you know.  I am so little accustomed to being—­snubbed, that I don’t take it a bit kindly!”

“I did not snub you,” she said, “at least, not intentionally.  But of course my friends have prior claims on my time and attention.  I can’t put them aside for a mere stranger.”

“A stranger?” he echoed.  “Then you mean——­”

“I mean what?”

“To ignore our former—­acquaintance—­altogether?”

“I do mean just that!  One has many desperate flirtations on board ship, but one isn’t in any way bound to remember them.  It is not always—­convenient.  You may have foolishly remembered.  I have—­forgotten!”

“You have not forgotten.  I say you have not, Opal.”

“We use surnames in society, Monsieur Zalenska?”

“Opal!” appealingly.

“Why such emotion, Monsieur?” mockingly.

The Boy was taken aback for a moment, but he met her eyes bravely.

“Why?  Because I love you, Opal, and in your heart you know it!”

“Why?”

“Why do I love you?  Because I can’t help it!  Who knows, really, why anything happens or does not happen in this topsy-turvy world?”

The girl looked at him steadily for a moment, and then spoke indifferently, almost lightly.