Page:William Le Queux - The Temptress.djvu/72

Rh suppose I shall find the whole collection bundled into a cupboard somewhere, for they must have been forgotten as soon as received. What strange beings women are, to be sure!"

Having finished his cigar, he stretched himself lazily, yawned, and exclaimed:

"Now I wonder whether there's anything else worth looking at? Such letters are quite as amusing as the comic papers."

He glanced at them carelessly, with an uninterested listlessness, for he felt half inclined to bum them, as at best they were only rubbish. It was a pity, he thought, that such a fine old piece of furniture as the Chippendale bureau should be used for no better purpose than to store these forgotten and useless communications. Again, why should he harbor the evidences of his dead brother's flirtations.

As these and similar thoughts were passing through his mind, he suddenly gave vent to an exclamation of intense surprise. Withdrawing his hand quickly from the bureau, he rushed across to the window in order to examine more closely the object which had evoked his astonishment.

It was a colored cabinet photograph.

He gazed upon it in dumb amazement, for the light revealed the pictured face of Valérie Dedieu!

Evidently it had been taken several years ago, as the hair was dressed in a style that was now out of date; still there was no doubt as to the identity of the original. With the exact contour of the features he was too well acquainted to regard it as a striking resemblance heightened by imagination. He examined every detail with eager eyes, and was convinced that the photograph was hers. The coloring, so far from altering the expression of the features, added a life-