That one little sentence, _"Have you deserted me?"_ grew to be a voluminous indictment. I could think of nothing else. There was something ineffably sad and pathetic about it. Had she been unhappy because of my beastly behaviour? Was her poor little heart sore over my incomprehensible conduct? Perhaps she had cried through sheer loneliness--But no! It would never do for me to even think of her in tears. I remembered having detected tears in her lovely eyes early in our acquaintance and the sight of them--or the sensation, if you please--quite unmanned me. At last I approached her door. Upon my soul, my legs were trembling! I experienced a silly sensation of fear. A new problem confronted me: what was I to say to her? Following close upon this came another and even graver question: what would she say to me? Suppose she were to look at me with hurt, reproachful eyes and speak to me with a little quaver in her voice as she held out her hand to me timidly--what then? What would become of me? By Jove, the answer that flashed through my whole body almost deprived me of reason! I hesitated, then, plucking up my courage and putting all silly questions behind me, I rapped resoundingly on the door. The excellent Hawkes opened it! I started back in dismay. He stood aside impressively. "Mr. Smart!" he announced. Damn it all! I caught sight of the Countess. She was arranging some flowers on the table. Blatchford was placing the knives and forks. Helen Marie Louise Antoinette stood beside her mistress holding a box of flowers in her hands. What was it that I had been thinking out there in those gloomy halls? That she would greet me with a pathetic, hurt look and... "Good morning!" she cried gaily. Hurt? Pathetic? She was radiant! "So glad to see you again. Hawkes has told me how busy you've been." She dried her hands on the abbreviated apron of Helen Marie Louise Antoinette and then quite composedly extended one for me to shake. I bowed low over it. "Awfully, awfully busy," I murmured. Was it relief at finding her so happy and unconcerned that swept through me? I am morally, but shamelessly certain it wasn't! "Don't you think the roses are lovely in that old silver bowl?" "Exquisite." "Blatchford found it in the plate vault," she said, standing off to admire the effect. "Do you mind if I go on arranging them?" she asked, and without waiting for an answer resumed her employment. "Bon jour, m'sieur," said Helen Marie Louise Antoinette over her mistress's shoulder. One never knows whether a French maid is polite or merely spiteful. "It seems ages since I saw you last," said the Countess in a matter-of-fact tone, jiggling a rose into position and then standing off to study the effect, her head cocked prettily at an angle of inquiry.