Page:The Tattooed Countess (1924).pdf/257

 The sunlight was too bright. They might at any instant be interrupted. Forcing herself to introduce a new topic as a diversion, soon she was describing a brilliant entertainment at Paris, the great staircase with its flaming torcheres, bronze Negroes, underneath which the ladies, in their dazzling jewels, their gowns of silver and cloth of gold, descended.

Were you, by any chance, Gareth asked her, at the Charity Bazaar fire?

No, she responded solemnly, but I lost many friends in that terrible holocaust. One hundred and fifty people were burned. The Vicomtesse d'Avenal. . . the Duchesse d'Alencon. What an unhappy woman! After her engagement to her cousin, Ludwig of Bavaria, was broken, she never recovered from the blow. She was glad, I feel certain, to die.

They walked farther than usual that day and it was very late when they returned to town. As he mounted the steps of his home Gareth felt peculiarly elated. Never in his life before, indeed, had he experienced such a sense of ecstasy. His father met him at the door.

Gareth, where have you been? he asked, and Gareth was immediately conscious of an unaccountably gentle note in his father's voice. We've been looking for you all over.

From this last phrase Gareth caught an alarm. What is the matter, father? he demanded.