If it be so, will you not let us call you Napoleon" (he took off his hat, and Valmond did the same), "and will you tell us what we may do for you ?" Madame Chalice, a little way off, watched Valmond closely.

He stood a moment in a quandary, yet he was not outwardly nervous, and he answered presently, with an air of empressement: "Monsieur, my friends, I am in the hands of fate.

I am dumb.

Fate speaks for me.

But we shall know each other better; and I trust you, who, as Frenchmen, descended from a better day in France, will not betray me.
Let us be patient till Destiny strikes the hour." Now for the first time to-day Valmond saw Madame Chalice.
She could have done no better thing to serve him than to hold out her hand, and say in her clear tones, which had, too, a fascinating sort of monotony: "Monsieur, if you are idle Friday afternoon, perhaps you will bestow on me a half-hour at the Manor; and I will try to make half mine no bad one." He was keen enough to feel the delicacy of the point through the deftness of the phrase; and what he said and what he did now had no pose, but sheer gratitude.