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 tread. There were mazy paths and leafy groves, turn where you would. The house itself was like an old shire mansion, low and gabled, with a white spire at the north end of it, and lawns smooth as billiard tables before its windows. The company, so far as names went, was beyond talk; and by far the best ornament to be found the whole house through was Mme. Pauline, who looked for all the world like a pretty schoolgirl broken out of bounds to enjoy herself. Think as I would, I could find no fair reason to quarrel with my quarters or the woman who found them for me; nevertheless I had my doubts about the journey from the start—could make nothing of it, in fact, and was the more suspicious on that account.

"What's her game?" I kept asking myself. "What is she doing down here with a company like this, when all the world is going back to Paris? If she was just in love with him, why not finish the business in town? He was willing enough."

This I said, turning the thing over and over in my mind, the very first night we came to the Château de l'Epee, which was her place.

I should tell you that they had lodged me with two or three more gentlemen's gentlemen in a little pavilion standing out in the park, about two hundred yards from the big house itself. I was never one that cared for society in a servants' hall, especially when that society was French down to the finger-tips; and when I had made sure that none of the others knew more than I did, either about Mme.