"Oh! I thought it was the concièrge," said the artist, evidently disappointed; "have you come to the right door? I don't think I know you." "No; I don't know you," Odd replied, smiling and casting a futile glance around the studio, now fully revealed by the shifting of the palette to a horizontal position. "I expected to find Miss Archinard. Are you working with her? Will she be back presently?" The gray-haired lady smiled an answering and explanatory smile. "Miss Archinard rents me her studio in the afternoon. She only uses it in the morning; she is never here in the afternoon." Odd felt a huge astonishment. "Never here?" "No; can I give her any message? I shall probably see her tomorrow if I come early enough." "Oh no, thanks. Thanks very much." He realized that to reveal his dismay would stamp Hilda with an unpleasantly mysterious character. "I shall see her this evening--at her mother's. I am sorry to have interrupted you." "Oh! Don't mention it!" The gray-haired lady still smiled kindly; Peter touched his hat and descended the stairs. Perhaps she worked in a large atelier in the afternoon; strange that she had never mentioned it. Madame Prinet, who had followed the visitor to the foot of the staircase and had located his errand, now stood in her door and surveyed his retreat with a fine air of impartiality; people who consulted her need not mount staircases for nothing. "Monsieur did not find Mademoiselle." Odd paused; he certainly would ask no questions of the concièrge, but she might, of her own accord, throw some light on Hilda's devious ways. "No; I had hoped to find her. Mademoiselle was in when I last called with her sister. I did not know that she went out every afternoon." Odd thought this tactful, implying, as it did, that Miss Archinard's friends were not in ignorance of her habits. "Every afternoon, monsieur; _elle et son chien_." "Ah, indeed!" Odd wished her good day and walked off. He had stumbled upon a mystery only Hilda herself might divulge: it might be very simple, and yet a sense of anxiety weighed upon him. At five he went to call on a pleasant and pretty woman, an American, who lived in the Boulevard Haussmann. He was to dine with the Archinards, and Katherine had said she might meet him at Mrs. Pope's; if she were not there by five he need not wait for her. She was not there, and Mr. Pope took possession of him on his entrance and led him into the library to show him some new acquisitions in bindings. Mrs. Pope was not a grass widow, and her husband, a desultory dilettante, was always in evidence in her graceful, crowded salon. He was a very tall, thin man, with white hair and a mild, almost timid manner, dashed with the collector's eagerness. "Now, Mr. Odd, I have a treasure here; really a perfect treasure. A genuine Grolier; I captured it at the La Hire sale. Just look here, please; come to the light. Isn't that a beauty?"