"Yes, and no. Dead to me these five years, though. Fact is, Miss Walsingham--don't feel horror-stricken--that Joliffe was intolerably prosy; we had a quarrel, and I ran off. Why not? Since then we have got comfortably divorced, and I can marry as soon as I like again. Joliffe was so jealous. I must not drive to the general's, I must not walk with a senator, I must eschew the military, and the best wits of the day are military men. Horrors! I must devote myself to Joliffe, and he only on the embassy at Washington." Madame appealed impressively to the icy Margaret. "General Legrange here declares that you are the widow of a Plenipotentiary of the French Court!" she said. "Does he indeed?" cried madame, with the gusto of habitual vanity. "Then I sha'n't contradict him--don't you, Miss Walsingham. They must always talk about me wherever I go. I am accustomed to it; I let them say what they choose. I please myself, and the world gives me my way, I've been North and South, East and West, and although I have seen trouble, I have ever trodden over it; no woman has ever got into the wrong box so often and come out of it to a higher grade; no woman has ever borne so much scandal, and been popular in spite of it. I survive it all; I eat, drink, make merry--am feasted, courted, and adored, and all because I don't let affairs of the heart vex me. I don't mope, and muse, and turn melancholy as you (a good creature, too), are doing." The fine, small face of Madame Hesslein shone with wicked animation; her thin, scarlet lips parted in two beauty curves with a string of pearls between, with small, glittering head poised on one side, the gorgeous parakeet studied the plain, tender creature before her, and laughed at such a contrast. "Do you know why I am here?" queried Margaret, tremulously. Madame Hesslein smiled and nodded. "All New York knows why the sombre English dame is here," she jibed, "for your stupid lawyer has bored the city for news of your Colonel Brand." "Mr. Davenport only does his duty." Madame grimaced charmingly. "Duty!" she mocked. "Oh, Juggernaut of good people's lives, what unwilling victims do ye crush beneath your wheels in your heavenward march?" "Have you been crushed?" asked Margaret, smiling. "Oh, no; Mr. Davenport is too pompous to expect anything of a woman. Stupid wretch!" "Had you known St. Udo Brand," cried Margaret, blushing, "you could not laugh at his destruction. He was bitterly proud, but he was true as steel." "Was he so?" breathed madam--and her green eyes grew black--"I should have liked to meet him, then. I have yet to meet the man who is as true as steel. Griselda, you are one who should win back a man--but, oh, you'll never do it! never!" A wild change swept over her fine face, her wondrous, globular eyes grew deep and passionate, and her beautiful hands were clasped in covert anguish.