"You must really see it," he said, for he had returned to the hotel with Muriel and had there met Stainton, who straightway invited him to luncheon in celebration of the concluding formalities of the sale. "The streets will be as deep as to the knee with confetti, and there will be masks. It is one of the annual things worth while." He was eating a salad as unconcernedly as if his morning had been one of the dull routine of the Embassy. Muriel looked at him in surprise at his ease of manner. For her own part, though she told herself religiously that she had done no wrong, she was singularly ill at ease. Her greeting, when Stainton had met and kissed her, was perfunctory, and, ever since, her bearing had been preoccupied. She gave but half an ear to her husband's long enthusiasm over the termination of his business with the syndicate, and now, as she glanced from von Klausen to Jim, she saw that the latter was tired. "You look tired," she said. Another would have said that he looked old. "Not at all," said Stainton. "I am feeling splendidly." His attention had been caught and his curiosity excited by von Klausen's description of the evening before the fete. If he felt somewhat worn from the now unaccustomed strain of business, he was all the more ready to welcome this chance for novel amusement. "Good," he went on to the Austrian. "We shall see it. Won't you be our pilot, Captain?" Von Klausen glanced at Muriel. "If," he said, "you will do me the honour--you and Mrs. Stainton--to dine with me. We might early take a car across the river to the Foyot and then run back in plenty of time to make the promenade of the boulevards. That is to say," he added deferentially, but with no alteration of expression, "if Mrs. Stainton is not too weary because of her drive this morning?" Jim, too, looked at Muriel. "I am not tired," said she. Her tone was as conventional as the Austrian's. Von Klausen turned to regard Stainton closely. "But you, sir," he said, "are you sure that you are not tired? This juggle with fortunes is what you call heroic." "Not at all, thanks. There was nothing but a great deal of talk and the signing of a few papers." Jim squared his broad shoulders, though the movement started a yawn that he was barely able to stifle. "Not at all." He began to resent this solicitude. "I am as fit as ever." "Perhaps," persisted von Klausen, "should you take a brief rest during the remainder of the afternoon----"