“Diversion or continuity?” he asked, with a laugh, as she held the bowl of soup to Jigger’s lips.  At this point the nurse had discreetly left the room.

“Continuity, of course,” she replied.  “All diplomatists are puzzles, some without solution.”

“Who said I was a diplomatist?” he asked, lightly.

“Don’t think that I’m guilty of the slander,” she rejoined.  “It was the Moravian ambassador who first suggested that what you were by profession you were by nature.”

Jasmine felt Ian hold his breath for a moment, then he said in a low tone, “M.  Mennaval—­you know him well?”

She did not look towards him, but she was conscious that he was eying her intently.  She put aside the bowl, and began to adjust Jigger’s pillow with deft fingers, while the lad watched her with a worship worth any money to one attacked by ennui and stale with purchased pleasures.

“I know him well—­yes, quite well,” she replied.  “He comes sometimes of an afternoon, and if he had more time—­or if I had—­he would no doubt come oftener.  But time is the most valuable thing I have, and I have less of it than anything else.”

“A diminishing capital, too,” he returned with a laugh; while his mind was suddenly alert to an idea which had flown into his vision, though its full significance did not possess him yet.

“The Moravian ambassador is not very busy,” he added with an undertone of meaning.

“Perhaps; but I am,” she answered with like meaning, and looked him in the eyes, steadily, serenely, determinedly.  All at once there had opened out before her a great possibility.  Both from the Count Landrassy and from the Moravian ambassador she had had hints of some deep, international scheme of which Ian Stafford was the engineer-in-chief, though she did not know definitely what it was.  Both ambassadors had paid their court to her, each in a different way, and M. Mennaval would have been as pertinacious as he was vain and somewhat weak (albeit secretive, too, with the feminine instinct so strong in him) if she had not checked him at all points.  From what Count Landrassy had said, it would appear that Ian Stafford’s future hung in the balance—­dependent upon the success of his great diplomatic scheme.

Could she help Ian?  Could she help him?  Had the time come when she could pay her debt, the price of ransom from the captivity in which he held her true and secret character?  It had been vaguely in her mind before; but now, standing beside Jigger’s bed, with the lad’s feverish hand in hers, there spread out before her a vision of a lien lifted, of an ugly debt redeemed, of freedom from this man’s scorn.  If she could do some great service for him, would not that wipe out the unsettled claim?  If she could help to give him success, would not that, in the end, be more to him than herself?  For she would soon fade, the dust would soon gather over her perished youth and beauty; but his success would live on, ever freshening in his sight, rising through long years to a great height, and remaining fixed and exalted.  With a great belief she believed in him and what he could do.  He was a Sisyphus who could and would roll the-huge stone to the top of the hill—­and ever with easier power.