"It would be generous of you, Count," she said, "to recognize an old friend." He stared at her with evident astonishment. "_Ciel!_" he exclaimed. "Ah, but eet weel be de _belle_ Madame Neleegaze!" She laughed as she shook hands, her dark eyes sparkling with fun. "As gallant as ever, Count. It is good of you to remember me after so many years." The Count regarded her with a look so earnest that he might easily be supposed to remember from the past, whatever and whenever it had been, many things of interest. Miss Wentstile surveyed the pair with an expression of keen suspicion. "Louisa," she demanded, "where did you know the Count?" The Count tried to speak, but Mrs. Neligage was too quick for him. "It was at--Where was it, Count? My memory for places is so bad," she returned mischievously. "Yees," he said eagerly. "Eet weel have been Paris _certainement_, ees eet not?" She laughed more teasingly yet, and glanced swiftly from him to Miss Wentstile. She was evidently amusing herself, though the simple question of the place of a former meeting might not seem to give much opportunity. "That doesn't seem to me to have been the place," she remarked. "Paris? Let me see. I should have said that it was--" The remark was not concluded, for down went the Count's teacup with a splash and a crash, with startings and cries from the ladies, and a hasty drawing away of gowns. Miss Endicott, who had listened carefully to the talk, took the catastrophe coolly enough, but with a darkening of the face which seemed to show that she regarded the accident as intentional. The Count whipped out his handkerchief, and went down on his knee instantly to wipe the hem of Miss Wentstile's spattered frock; while Mrs. Neligage seemed more amused than ever. "Oh, I am deesconsolate forever!" the Count exclaimed, in tones which were pathetic enough to have made the reputation of an actor. "I am broken een de heart, Mees Wentsteele." "It is no matter," Miss Wentstile said stiffly. A ring of the bell brought Graham to repair the damage as far as might be, and in the confusion the Count moved aside with the widow. "That was not done with your usual skill, Count," she said mockingly. "It was much too violent for the occasion." "But for what you speak of Monaco here?" he demanded fiercely. "De old Mees Wentsteele say dat to play de card for money ees villain. She say eet is murderous. She say she weel not to endure de man dat have gamboled." "And you have gamboled in a lively manner in your time, Count. It's an old pun, but it would be new to you if you could understand it." "I don't understand," he said savagely in French. "No matter. It wasn't worth understanding," she answered, in the same tongue. "But you needn't have been afraid. I'm no spoil-sport. I shouldn't have told." "She is an old prude," he went on, smiling, and showing his white teeth. "If she knew I had been in a duel, she would know me no more." "She will not know from me."