"Let me finish," Bernadine insisted. "Perhaps when you have heard all that I have to say you may change your attitude. We are interested in the same people, but in different ways. If we both move from opposite directions our friend will vanish. He is clever enough at disappearing, as he has proved before. We do not want the same thing from him, I am convinced of that. Let us move together and make sure that he does not evade us." "Is it an alliance which you are proposing?" de Grost asked, with a quiet smile. "Why not?" Bernadine answered. "Enemies have united before to-day against a common foe." De Grost looked across the palm court to where the two people who formed the subject of their discussion were sitting in a corner, both smoking, both sipping some red-coloured liqueur. "My dear Bernadine," he said, "I am much too afraid of you to listen any more. You fancy because this man's presence here was an entire surprise to you, and because you find me already on his track, that I know more than you do, and that an alliance with me would be to your advantage. You would try to persuade me that your object with him would not be my object. Listen! I am afraid of you--you are too clever for me. I am going to leave you in sole possession." De Grost's tone was final and his bow valedictory. Bernadine watched him stroll in a leisurely way through the foyer, exchanging greetings here and there with friends; watched him enter the cloak-room, from which he emerged with his hat and overcoat; watched him step into his automobile and leave the restaurant. He turned back with a clouded face and threw himself into an easy-chair. Ten minutes passed uneventfully. People were passing backwards and forwards all the time; but Bernadine, through his half-closed eyes, did little save watch the couple in whom he was so deeply interested. At last the man rose and, with a word of farewell to his companion, came out from the lounge and made his way up the foyer, turning toward the hotel. He walked with quick, nervous strides, glancing now and then restlessly about him. In his eyes, to those who understood, there was the furtive gleam of the hunted man. It was the passing of one who was afraid. The woman, left to herself, began to look around her with some curiosity. Bernadine, to whom a new idea had occurred, moved his chair nearer to hers, and was rewarded by a glance which certainly betrayed some interest. A swift and unerring judge in such matters, he came to the instant conclusion that she was not unapproachable. He acted upon impulse. Rising to his feet, he approached her and bowed easily, but respectfully. "Madame," he said, "it is impossible that I am mistaken. I have had the pleasure, have I not, of meeting you in St. Petersburg?" Her first reception of his coming was reassuring enough. At his mention of St. Petersburg, however, she frowned. "I do not think so," she answered in French. "You are mistaken. I do not know St. Petersburg."