"Oh, dear me, no. Miss Tallentire goes with me. A charming girl who is engaged to my cousin, the Rev. Lionel Kaimes. We stay for a week at the Hotel Henri Trois, Champs Élysées. Very quietly, you know, as I am still mourning." "As you are still in mourning," corrected her visitor, politely. "Certainly. You would not have me flaunting colours with poor dear Jim just dead. I want to be cheered up, and I ask you and Mr. Askew to cheer me." "Oh! ah!" Aksakoff wrinkled his brow. "Mr. Askew goes to Paris, also?" "He said something about it. Such a nuisance, seeing that he thinks--well, I told you." "Madame, his thoughts are excusable. But M. Demetrius will be angered." "What do you mean?" demanded Lady Jim, imperiously. Aksakoff's patience was almost exhausted. "We spoke at Monte Carlo," he reminded her. "Surely we understand one another." "Possibly you may. I am quite in the dark. Why should you couple my name with that of M. Demetrius?" "Report says that he loves you." "Oh--report!" She laughed, frankly amused. "If you believe reports----" Here a shrug and a contemptuous laugh. "Why, reports leave no one a shred of character. I quite expect that my enemies--Mrs. Penworthy, for one--will say that Mr. Askew followed me to Paris, for the purpose of marrying me at the British Embassy." Aksakoff admired her profoundly. Without committing herself in any way or for a single instance, she was placing in his hands the thread of the intrigue. Tacitly acknowledging a diplomatic superior, he followed her lead. "I trust that Mrs. Penworthy, whom I have the honour to know, will not spread such a report," he said gravely. "Oh, but she will. A horrid woman, and scarcely respectable. She has called in Dr. Demetrius as her medical attendant, and if--as you say--he admires me, she is sure to make mischief." "Well," said Aksakoff, reflectively, "I am perfectly sure that if M. Demetrius heard such gossip, he would----" "Forbid the banns," finished Leah, hastily and derisively. "Pah! Do you think, knowing his danger, he would trust himself in Paris? You are entirely wrong, M. Aksakoff. Our mutual friend left me this very afternoon to follow your daughter. Let him marry her--now do." "No," said Aksakoff, setting down his cup. "Until he surrenders Katinka he is safer in England." "In that case, please do not let Mrs. Penworthy gossip him into crossing the Channel." "For your sake, I will not," said Aksakoff, dryly, and with every intention of aiding and abetting Mrs. Penworthy. "Will you give me another cup of tea?" She supplied him, and their conversation embraced a variety of subjects. No further mention was made of Demetrius, or of Katinka, or of Askew, or even of Paris. They quite understood one another, did these two clever people. When the diplomatist departed he kissed Lady Jim's hand with courtly warmth.