CHAPTER VI.
Julian entered the drawing-room hurriedly a few minutes later.
He glanced around quickly, conscious of a distinct feeling of disappointment.

His mother, who was arranging a bridge table, called him over to her side.
"You have the air, my dear boy, of missing some one," she remarked with a smile.
"I want particularly to speak to Miss Abbeway," he confided.
Lady Maltenby smiled tolerantly.
"After nearly two hours of conversation at dinner! Well, I won't keep you in suspense.

She wanted a quiet place to write some letters, so I sent her into the boudoir." Julian hastened off, with a word of thanks.

The boudoir was a small room opening from the suite which had been given to the Princess and her niece a quaint, almost circular apartment, hung with faded blue Chinese silk and furnished with fragments of the Louis Seize period,--a rosewood cabinet, in particular, which had come from Versailles, and which was always associated in Julian's mind with the faint fragrance of two Sevres jars of dried rose leaves.

The door opened almost noiselessly.
Catherine, who was seated before a small, ebony writing table, turned her head at his entrance.
"You ?" she exclaimed.
Julian listened for a moment and then closed the door.