“Perhaps you are more agreeably employed?” “At this exact moment, certainly.” She cast a disdainful glance at him, crossed the hall, and followed Kilcraithie. “Hang me, if I understand it all!” mused the consul, by no means good-humoredly. “Does she think I have been spying upon her and her noble chieftain? But it's just as well that I didn't tell her anything.” He turned to follow them. In the vestibule he came upon a figure which had halted before a large pier-glass. He recognized M. Delfosse, the French visitor, complacently twisting the peak of his Henri Quatre beard. He would have passed without speaking, but the Frenchman glanced smilingly at the consul and his buttonhole. Again the flower! “Monsieur is decore,” he said gallantly. The consul assented, but added, not so gallantly, that though they were not in France he might still be unworthy of it. The baleful flower had not improved his temper. Nor did the fact that, as he entered the room, he thought the people stared at him--until he saw that their attention was directed to Lady Deeside, who had entered almost behind him. From his hostess, who had offered him a seat beside her, he gathered that M. Delfosse and Kilcraithie had each temporarily occupied his room, but that they had been transferred to the other wing, apart from the married couples and young ladies, because when they came upstairs from the billiard and card room late, they sometimes disturbed the fair occupants. No!--there were no ghosts at Glenbogie. Mysterious footsteps had sometimes been heard in the ladies' corridor, but--with peculiar significance--she was AFRAID they could be easily accounted for. Sir Alan, whose room was next to the MacSpaddens', had been disturbed by them. He was glad when it was time to escape to the billiard-room and tobacco. For a while he forgot the evening's adventure, but eventually found himself listening to a discussion--carried on over steaming tumblers of toddy--in regard to certain predispositions of the always debatable sex.