.

." said Marguerite, with a pretty little sigh of satisfaction.

"I am mightily pleased to see you." No doubt poor Marguerite St.Just, lonely in the midst of her grandeur, and of her starchy friends, was happy to see a face that brought back memories of that happy time in Paris, when she reigned--a queen--over the intellectual coterie of the Rue de Richelieu.

She did not notice the sarcastic little smile, however, that hovered round the thin lips of Chauvelin.
"But tell me," she added merrily, "what in the world, or whom in the world, are you doing here in England ?" "I might return the subtle compliment, fair lady," he said.

"What of yourself ?" "Oh, I ?" she said, with a shrug of the shoulders.