All this time she was staring rather pensively at the second button from the top of Poopendyke's coat, and so prolonged and earnest was her gaze that I looked down in some concern, at the same time permitting myself to make a nervous, jerky and quite involuntary digital examination of the aforesaid button. She looked up with a nervous little laugh. "I shall have to sew one on right there for poor Mr. Poopendyke," she said, poking her finger into the empty buttonhole. "You dear bachelors!" Then she turned swiftly away from me, and glided over to the big armchair, from the depths of which she fished a small velvet bag. Looking over her shoulder, she smiled at me. "Please look the other way," she said. Without waiting for me to do so, she took out a little gold box, a powder puff, and a stick of lip rouge. Crossing to the small Florentine mirror that hung near my desk, she proceeded, before my startled eyes, to repair the slight--and to me unnoticeable--damage that had been done to her complexion before the sun came up. "Woman works in a mysterious way, my friend, her wonders to perform," she paraphrased calmly. "No matter how transcendently beautiful woman may be, she always does that sort of thing to herself, I take it," said I. "She does," said the Countess with conviction. She surveyed herself critically. "There! And now I am ready to accept an invitation to breakfast. I am disgustingly hungry." "And so am I!" I cried with enthusiasm. "Hurray! You shall eat Poopendyke's breakfast, just to penalise him for failing in his duties as host during my unavoidable--" "Quite impossible," she said. "He has already eaten it." "He has?" "At half-past six, I believe. He announced at that ungodly hour that if he couldn't have his coffee the first thing in the morning he would be in for a headache all day. He suggested that I take a little nap and have breakfast with you--if you succeeded in surviving the night." "Oh, I see," said I slowly. "He knew all the time that you were napping in that chair, eh?" "You shall not scold him!" "I shall do even worse than that. I shall pension him for life." She appeared thoughtful. A little frown' of annoyance clouded her brow. "He promised faithfully to arouse me the instant you were sighted on the opposite side of the river. I made him stand in the window with a field glass. No, on second thought, _I_ shall scold him. If he had come to the door and shouted, you wouldn't have caught me in this odious dressing-gown. Helene--" "It is most fascinating," I cried. "Adorable! I love flimsy, pink things. They're so intimate. And Poopendyke knows it, bless his ingenuous old soul." I surprised a queer little gleam of inquiry in her eyes. It flickered for a second and died out.