The Lady Evelyn. Pemberton Max

are entirely English both in my preferences and my friendships," was her reply, nor could she have told anyone why she put this affront upon him.

      "She's going to make friends enough out yonder in the Fall," said Izard, whose quick ear caught the tone of their conversation. "I shall take this company over in September if we play to any money this side. Miss Romney goes with me, and I promise her a good time any way. America's the country for her talent. You've too many played-out actors over here. Most of them think themselves beautiful, and that's why their theatres close up."

      He laughed a flattering tribute to his own cleverness, as much as to say—"My theatres never close up." Count Odin on his part smiled a little dryly as though he might yet have something to say to the proposed arrangement.

      "Are you looking forward to the journey, Miss Romney?" he asked Etta in a low voice.

      "I am not thinking at all about it," she said very truthfully.

      "Then perhaps you are looking backward," he suggested, but in such a low tone that even Izard did not hear him.

      When Etta turned her startled eyes upon him, he was already addressing some commonplace remark to his hostess, while Mr. Charles Izard amused himself by diligently checking the total of the bill.

      "I could keep a steam yacht on what I pay for wine in this hotel," he remarked jovially, addressing himself so directly to the ladies that even his good dame protested.

      "My dear Charles," she exclaimed, "you are not suggesting that I have drunk it?"

      "Well, I hope some one has," was the affable retort. "Let's go and smoke. It's suffocating in here."

      Etta had been greatly alarmed by the Count's remark, though she was very far from believing that it could bear the sinister interpretation which her first alarm had put upon it. This fear of discovery had dogged her steps since she quitted her home to embark upon as wild an adventure as a young girl ever set her hand to; but if discovery came, she reflected, it would not be at the bidding of a foreigner whom she had seen for the first time in her life but a few days ago. Such wisdom permitted her quickly to recover her composure, and she pleaded the lateness of the hour and her own fatigue as the best of reasons for leaving the hotel.

      "I am glad you were pleased," she said to Izard, holding out her hand directly they entered the hall. "Of course it has all been very dreadful to me and I'm still in a dream about it. The newspapers will tell me the truth to-morrow, I feel sure of it."

      He shook her hand and held it while he answered her.

      "Don't you go thinking too much about the newspapers," he said, with a splendid sense of his own importance. "When Charles Izard says that a play's got to go, it's going, my dear, though the great William Shakespeare himself got out of his grave to write it down. You've done very well to-night and you'll do better when you know your way about the stage. Go home and sleep on that, and let the critics spread themselves as much as they please."

      As before, when she had first come to the hotel, Mrs. Izard defied the warning glances thrown toward her by the man of business and repeated her honest praise of Etta's performance.

      "It's years since I heard such enthusiasm in a theatre," she admitted; "why, Charles was quite beside himself. I do believe you made him cry, my dear."

      The mere suggestion that the great man could shed tears under any circumstances whatever appealed irresistibly to Count Odin's sense of humor.

      "Put that in the advertisement and you shall have all the town at your theatre. An impressario's tears! They should be gathered in cups of jasper and of gold. But I imagine that they will be," he added gayly before wishing Etta a last good-night.

      "We shall meet again," he said to her a little way apart. "I am the true believer in the accident of destiny. Let us say au revoir rather than good-night."

      *****

      Etta looked him straight in the eyes and said, "Good-night."