“Ah, my Quantrelle!” he cried, gayly, at sight of the thin grotesqueness.  “Still in your old place; still taking care of madame!”

“Till the end,” was the answer, with a serious note in the voice.

“You have not changed much in the three years since I saw you last,” Dermott said, inspecting him closely.

“Nor you, monsieur,” Quantrelle answered.  “In fact, you have changed little since twelve years ago, when I hid you and young Monsieur de Chevanne on top of my box here, after some escapade, to keep you both from the police.”  He scrutinized McDermott closely as he spoke.  “And it’s not the money (which I know well you will give me anyhow) which makes me say you are more beautiful than ever, monsieur.  The same elegant pallor; the same pursuit in the eye!  Had I had your looks”; he made a clucking sound in his cheek with his tongue; “and your clothes!  Always the blacks and grays and very elegant!  They are not my colors,” he drew himself to his straightest to exhibit his maroon coat and trousers and wide green cravat with an assumed satisfaction; “but each has his own style,” he finished.

McDermott laughed.  “You are sober, Quantrelle!”

“Distressingly so, monsieur!”

“And if I give you money you would use it for—­” McDermott paused.

“Charity, monsieur,” the Red One answered, his eyes drooped religiously.  He took the gold coin which Dermott gave him, tossed it into the sunshine, and slipped it into his pocket with a bow.  “You will notice, I honor your integrity by not biting it to see if it be counterfeit.”

“Knowing your character, it is indeed a compliment,” McDermott said.  “Au revoir, my Quantrelle!”

“Au revoir, Monsieur l’Irlandais!”

And Dermott passed.

Inside he found the Countess waiting in the drawing-room, and she greeted him with hands outstretched, kissing him on both cheeks in the French fashion.  Afterward she stood regarding him with a slow, sweet smile, which came from one of the kindest hearts in the world.

“And this,” she said, in a beautiful, quiet, warm voice, “is the Irish cousin who has not been to see me for so very long!”

Although past fifty, she was tall and slight, with the grace of a girl.  Her hair, white and soft and wavy, was worn high in a style quite her own; her skin was pink and white as a child’s; her blue eyes shone with tenderness, and they had a merry, dancing light in them continually.  Her face was of a delicate oval, with a nose slender, beautifully modelled, and exceptionally high between the eyes.  She wore a green-white dress of cloth individual in its cut and very plain, with an old silver belt and brooch to match.  Her hands, fragile and beautiful as shells, were ringless.

“It seems so perfectly flat to say that I am glad to see you, doesn’t it?” she asked, as Dermott smiled down at her.

“I like it just the same,” he answered.