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Rh seemed to pervade the whole atmosphere of the place and the lives of these people.

Louise rose as he approached and motioned him to take her vacated place.

"Madame de Melbain would like to talk to you for a few moments," she said quietly. "Afterwards will you come on to the terrace?"

She swept away through the open window, and was at once followed by the Baron. Mademoiselle de Courcelles was playing very softly on a grand piano in an unseen corner of the apartment. Wrayson and his hostess were alone.

She turned towards him with a faint smile. She spoke with great deliberation, but very clearly, and there was in her voice some hidden quality, indefinable in words, yet both musical and singularly attractive.

"I shall not keep you very long, Mr. Wrayson," she said. "Louise has been talking to me about you. She is happy, I think, to have found a friend so chivalrous and so discerning."

Wrayson smiled doubtfully as he answered.

"It is very little that I have been able to do for her," he said. "My complaint is that she will not give me the opportunity of doing more."

"You are too modest," Madame de Melbain said slowly. "Louise has told me a good deal. I think that you have been a very faithful friend."

Wrayson bowed but said nothing. If Madame de Melbain had anything to say to him, he preferred to afford her the opportunity of an attentive silence.

"Louise and I," Madame de Melbain continued, "were school friends. So you see that I have known her all my life. She has had her troubles, as I have! Only