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Then the baronet's smile died, for, following the train of his suspicious thoughts, he instinctively grasped and held on to the idea that just as Boris had been searching his kit-bag for the purpose of blackmail, so that individual purposed marriage with Mademoiselle Vseslavitch to the same end. This notion disquieted him greatly. It disturbed him so much that the hard eyes hardened.
And, mark you, too, I have no desire to have Madame Estelle and Mademoiselle Vseslavitch becoming too friendly. You never can rely on women. They are funny creatures, and Madame is far too sympathetic with the girl already. So I shall look to you to stop anything of that sort. "For the rest, you will know what to do if certain contingencies should arise.
"Come into the library," said Mademoiselle Vseslavitch, "and we will have the tea things brought in there. It's not too early for you, is it?" Paul laughed at the idea of its ever being too early for an Englishman's tea. Under pressure of work, when Parliament was sitting, he drank innumerable cups.
"No man, except one such as you," he said, "would dream of regarding Mademoiselle Vseslavitch as a possible wife unless he were so equipped with all the arts of blackmail that he had some reason to hope for his success." By this time Boris had got back his composure. "You seem," he said casually, "to endow me with an exceedingly poor character." "Not exactly," said Paul.
There was some bustle about the door of the inn, and then he saw the fat landlady bowing and scraping on the white doorstep, and out of the shadows into the sunshine stepped the girl he had come to find. Dressed all in black and thickly veiled, Mademoiselle Vseslavitch came quickly out of the doorway and walked down the street.
"Not at all, sir," Paul interrupted, "I am the one who should apologize for having so imposed upon your hospitality." And with Mademoiselle Vseslavitch he retired. So her name was Natalie! Paul liked the name it seemed to fit her excellently. And he looked lovingly at the charming girl beside him. "We will take a stroll in the garden, if it pleases you," she suggested. Paul was delighted.
The Comtesse was insistent, and the Ambassador himself had charged his spouse to invite her. Very well! She would be there. And Mademoiselle Vseslavitch called her maid and gave her instructions to be ready to leave for Paris by the morning train.
Boris was a man used to being hard hit. He was steeled against cunningly and swiftly-dealt blows, such as he himself administered, but this declaration of Sir Paul's, that he intended to marry Mademoiselle Vseslavitch, took him quite back. "Oh!" he exclaimed softly, and his voice had a certain note of surprise in it.
There come times in every one's life when explanations, even if one might give them, are useless. And Sir Paul Verdayne realized that fact to its fullest when he faced the quasi Countess in the Casino vestibule. What unhappy inspiration had caused her to dress herself in a manner almost identical with that in which Mademoiselle Vseslavitch had appeared at Lucerne?
The whole bearing of Mademoiselle Vseslavitch and her brother had changed Paul noticed that immediately. Now that with Boris's death the cause of their former disquiet had been removed forever they were two entirely different persons. It made Paul's heart glad to hear the buoyant note in Natalie's voice as she talked with them gaily.
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