The door opened, and the servant brought a card to her.  “His Excellency, the Moravian ambassador,” the footman said.

“Monsieur Mennaval?” she asked, mechanically, as though scarcely realizing what he had said.

“Yes, ma’am, Mr. Mennaval.”

“Please say I am indisposed, and am sorry I cannot receive him to-day,” she said.

“Very good, ma’am.”  The footman turned to go, then came back.

“Shall I tell the maid you want her?” he asked, respectfully.

“No, why should you?” she asked.

“I thought you looked a bit queer, ma’am,” he responded, hastily.  “I beg your pardon, ma’am.”

She rewarded him with a smile.  “Thank you, James, I think I should like her after all.  Ask her to come at once.”

When he had gone she leaned back and shut her eyes.  For a moment she was perfectly motionless, then she sat up again and looked at the card in her hand.

“M.  Mennaval—­M.  Mennaval,” she said, with a note so cynical that it betrayed more than her previous emotion, to such a point of despair her mind had come.

M. Mennaval had played his part, had done his service, had called out from her every resource of coquetry and lure; and with wonderful art she had cajoled him till he had yielded to influence, and Ian had turned the key in the international lock.  M. Mennaval had been used with great skill to help the man who was now gone from her forever, whom perhaps she would never see again; and who wanted never to see her again, never in all time or space.  M. Mennaval had played his game for his own desire, and he had lost; but what had she gained where M. Mennaval had lost?  She had gained that which now Ian despised, which he would willingly, so far as she was concerned, reject with contempt....  And yet, and yet, while Ian lived he must still be grateful to her that, by whatever means, she had helped him to do what meant so much to England.  Yes, he could not wholly dismiss her from his mind; he must still say, “This she did for me—­this thing, in itself not commendable, she did for me; and I took it for my country.”

Her eyes were open, and her garden had been invaded by those revolutionaries of life and time, Nemesis, Penalty, Remorse.  They marauded every sacred and secret corner of her mind and soul.  They came with whips to scourge her.  Nothing was private to her inner self now.  Everything was arrayed against her.  All life doubled backwards on her, blocking her path.

M. Mennaval—­what did she care for him!  Yet here he was at her door asking payment for the merchandise he had sold to her:  his judgment, his reputation as a diplomatist, his freedom, the respect of the world—­for how could the world respect a man at whom it laughed, a man who had hoped to be given the key to a secret door in a secret garden!

As Jasmine sat looking at the card, the footman entered again with a note.

“His Excellency’s compliments,” he said, and withdrew.