Lucille's clear laugh was ever ready to welcome some little pleasantry, and she joined occasionally in the talk. I listened more to the voice than to the words. Her gay humour found something laughable in remarks that sounded grave enough, and I suddenly felt a hundred years old. As she walked demurely into the dining-room on her father's arm, I thought in truth that she would rather have skipped and run thither. During dinner mention was made of the Baron Giraud, and I learnt that that financier was among the Vicomte's friends. The name was not new to me, although the Baron's personality was unknown. The Baron was one of the mushrooms of that day--a nobleman of finance, a true product of Paris, highly respected and honoured there. John Turner knew him well, and was ponderously silent respecting him. "But why," asked Lucille, when her father had delivered a little oration in favour of the rich man, "does Monsieur Giraud dye his hair?" There was a little laugh and a silence at this display of naive wisdom. Then it was Madame who spoke. "No doubt he feels himself unworthy to wear it white," she said, rising from the table. I was given to understand that the remainder of the evening was my own, and the Vicomte himself showed me the small staircase descending from the passage between my study and his own, and presented me with a key to the door at the foot of it. This door, he explained, opened to a small passage running between the Rue des Palmiers and the Rue Courte. It would serve me for egress and entry at any time without reference to the servants or disturbance to the house. "I would not give the key to the first comer," he added. I learnt later that he and I alone had access to the door of which the servants had no key, nor ever passed there. The same evening I availed myself of my privilege and went to my club, where over a foolish game of chance I won a year's salary. Such was the beginning of my career in the service of the Vicomte de Clericy. During the weeks that followed I found that there was, in fact, plenty for me to do were the estates to be properly worked--to be administered as we Englishmen are called upon to treat our property to-day, that is to say, like a sponge, to be squeezed to its last drop. I soon discovered that the Vicomte was in the hands of old-fashioned stewards, who, besides feathering their own nests, were not making the best of the land. My conscience, it must be admitted, was at work again--and I had thought it finally vanquished.