She looked so captivating as she said this, her voice was so soft, and altogether she seemed so charming, that Faulkner at once answered that he had not the least desire to leave the room if she would promise to come back as quickly as possible, and to stay a little while. "Then you will promise?" she asked, her big eyes set on his. "How foolish! Why?" I asked, interrupting. "Well," she replied. "If you will remain here I will bring you a visitor." "A visitor?" "Yes," she laughed. "Somebody you know." "Who?" "A great friend of yours." I looked at her puzzled. "A friend--man or woman?" "Female," she assured us with a charming accent. "Your friend Mademoiselle Thorold." "Vera!" I gasped. "Is she here?" "Yes," was her reply. "She is here." How well Vera knew my character when she told me that day I was "susceptible." I think I am dreadfully so. The look in those great brown eyes gazing into mine seemed to weaken my will until I had to answer almost sulkily-- "I suppose I must. Yes, I--well, I'll promise for the present anyhow," I said. "Not to leave this room before my return?" she said. "Not to leave this room before you return," I repeated. Then she left us, and we sat looking at each other like a pair of fools. "Well," Faulkner said. "If you can be rude to a pretty girl like that, Ashton, I can't, and I don't intend to be. Besides, if Vera is here, Gladys may be here also!" "I thought you said you are engaged to be married?" "I did. And I am. But I don't see why, for that reason, you need call me a fool for being ordinarily polite to another woman, or to any woman, especially if we are to meet Vera." "You quite mistake my meaning," I said. "I say we are a pair of fools-- I am more to blame perhaps than you--for being coerced by a chit of a girl into promising to stay here, as though we were a pair of schoolboys put `on their honour.' It is downright silly, to say the least. Yet we must not break our _parole_--eh?" I liked Faulkner. His spirit, and his way of saying what he thought amused me. One meets so few men nowadays with pluck enough to say what they really think and mean. The young girl, whose name was Violet--Violet de Coudron--spread the white cloth, laid the table, and herself brought in our dejeuner. What position did she occupy in the house, we both wondered. Surely there must be servants, and yet... where was Vera? "You have to stay here until to-morrow," she said, when we had begun our meal--the cooking was excellent, and the wine was above reproach. "And, until then, you are under my supervision. Those are my orders." "Your orders, received from whom--eh?" I asked. "Mademoiselle Thorold wishes it." "Were we brought here yesterday, or when?" Faulkner asked presently. "About two o'clock this morning." "And what was this grim joke?" "That I may not tell you, m'sieur," she replied. "Indeed, I couldn't tell you--for I don't know. Miss Thorold knows."