Already the grand duchess was thinking of taking her departure when of a sudden, as if drawn by some surprising vision, she half sprang up, then with a quick recoil threw herself back into the shadows, as though terrified and yet more anxious than before to shun observation. Bowing low in courteous greeting to one and another acquaintance, a man of slim, well-knit figure and elegant bearing had joined the circle formed by the official guests. His name passed from lip to lip, and he was welcomed with a chorus of friendly and admiring exclamations, sometimes marked by just a touch of raillery: “Tom Bob! why how late you are. What, have you been hunting till this hour of the night for your strange enemy, the ever evasive Fantômas?” But while the sound of that dreaded name still broke the stillness of the summer evening, while the Grand Duchess Alexandra, Lady Beltham in reality, still shuddered to hear her lover’s name pronounced, gaiety quickly resumed its sway among the other guests. “My dear,” remarked a tall young woman, a trifle eccentric in appearance and manner, a Russian who, report said, had been involved in a highly diverting scandal, “My dear, you are sad?” But the Princess Sonia Danidoff, to whom the words were spoken, shook her head with a smile: “No, you are mistaken; I am not sad, but I am thinking.” “Thinking of what?” At the little table where the two pretty women were conversing, there sat, among several _attachés_ of the Embassies, the wealthy young Englishman, Mr. Ascott, who now followed up the question addressed to the beautiful princess. “Princess,” he said, “we cannot long allow you to remain so self-absorbed, so serious, on so lovely a night as this and at so delightful a fête.” A smile of raillery curled Sonia Danidoff’s lips; with a touch of impatience, a suspicion of mockery, she replied: “So, sir, if you can prevent my being sad, for it appears I _am_ sad, I gladly give you my permission to try. But I am very much afraid you will find it difficult to make me merry.” “That depends,” returned the Englishman; “tell us, if it may be, the wish you have in your mind. All here, I make bold to say, are gallant gentlemen. At the risk of attempting the impossible, we will use every effort to give it satisfaction. I even notice by the smile on my friend Tom Bob’s face, and you know a police-officer rarely smiles, he admits that to please you nothing is impossible. It is a guarantee that, if we fail in our desire to banish your depression, it will be no fault of ours.” The Princess Danidoff was opening her lips to reply when her friend stopped her.