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 it up to the light she verified his statement; and he saw that her own hand was shaking.

A vague sense of triumph caused him to look toward Chambret; who bowed ironically.

"But—but you are not injured, monsieur?"

It was the princess who addressed him; O'Rourke dared to smile at her—a smile that was at once bright with his consciousness of his triumph, and itself a triumph of dissimulation.

"Not in the least," he hastened to reassure her; "Monsieur Chambret is too skilful a shot to have chanced a mistake."

"You are satisfied as to my skill, then, monsieur?" inquired Chambret.

"Quite—and shall be so for a long time to come." He remembered his rôle in the deception which they were united in practising upon madame, and laughed again. "I yield the point, monsieur," he added, "and likewise the palm. Ye are a finer shot than I, be long odds."

But it is a question as to whether or not they were successful in deceiving the princess; the glance that she shifted from the one to the other was filled with dubiety.

She felt instinctively, perhaps, that here was something deeper than appeared upon the surface; but she might not probe it courteously nor with any propriety, since both seemed to desire her to believe that the affair had been nothing more than a test of Monsieur Chambret's mastery of the weapon.

"In the future, messieurs," she announced frowning, "I trust that you will confine your exhibitions to more appropriate hours and localities. Moreover, I do not like it. At best it is dangerous and proves little. Colonel O'Rourke, your arm."

She gathered up the train of her evening gown, and moved