“I wish to see his Excellency the Ambassador!” she said, speaking in French.

The flunky took her card and bowed her into a small reception room.

After a moment or so a dapper young man entered, her card in his fingers.

“Messes Cleephane?” he inquired.

“I am Mrs. Clephane,” she replied in French.  “I wish to see his Excellency the Ambassador on a most important matter.”

“You have an appointment with his Excellency?” he asked, this time in French.

“You are—­” she inflected.

“His secretary, madame,” the young man bowed.

“No, I have not an appointment,” she replied, “but I come from Madame Durrand who was the bearer of a cipher letter from the Foreign Minister.  Madame Durrand was injured as she was about to take train in New York, and gave me the letter to deliver.”

The secretary looked at her blandly and smiled faintly.

“You have the letter with you?” he asked.

“Again, no,” she replied.  “It is to explain its loss, and to warn the Ambassador that I am here.”

“His Excellency is exceedingly busy—­will you not relate the circumstances to me?”

“My instructions from Madame Durrand are most specific that I am to deal only with his Excellency,” Mrs. Clephane explained—­with such a dazzling smile that the secretary’s eyes fairly popped.  “Won’t you please tell him I’m here, and that I have a luncheon engagement at one o’clock.”

The secretary hesitated.  Again the smile smote him full in the face—­and he hesitated no longer.

“Come with me, Madame Clephane,” he replied “His Excellency is occupied at present, but I’ll deliver your message.”

Once more the smile—­as opening the door for her he bowed her into an inner office, and carefully placed a chair for her.

“A moment, madame,” he whispered, disappearing through an adjoining doorway.

Whereat Mrs. Clephane sighed with amused complacency, and waited.

Presently the door opened and the secretary appeared.  “His Excellency will receive you, Madame Clephane,” he said.

“I thank you—­oh, so much!” she whispered as she passed him—­and the look that went with the words cleared all her scores—­and almost finished him.

So much for a smile—­when a beautiful woman smiles, and smiles in just the right way, and especially when the man smiled on is a Frenchman.

The Ambassador was standing by a large, flat-topped desk in the centre of the room, his back was to the light, which was generously given in all its effulgence to his visitors.  He was a small man and slight of build, intensely nervous, with well-cut features, gray hair—­what there was of it—­and a tiny black moustache curled up at the ends but not waxed.

He came briskly forward and extended his hand.

“My dear Madame Clephane,” he said in French, leading her to a chair, “how can I serve you?”