abode. Some of the accounts had a small piece of dress-material carefully pinned to them, evidently that of the gown worn at the ball or theatre-party in question, and all were neatly arranged and docketed. King Michael stood before the rifled cabinet in a towering rage. He was in no mood for the consolation, of which the examination of his wife’s dearest treasures might have assured him, that she loved no one but herself; all he felt was that he was in an absurd and ungraceful position. To put everything back as he had found it was almost an impossibility, even if he could get the cabinet-door to lock again. If he could not, Félicia and that American woman would guess the truth at once. Only one person would tamper with the cabinet so clumsily if he ventured to do it all. He was beginning to lay the papers in the drawer as smoothly as he could, trusting that Félicia might not remember the exact order in which she had left them, when he was horrified by the sound of voices in the next room. “I just wish that Paris store would hurry up with those albums, Maime,” said Félicia, and her voice was coming closer. “When one has them make things to one’s own design, they’re so awfully long about it.” “I’d have them send one at a time, just as they’re finished,” Maimie answered. “Then we can start on your graduation right away.” “I guess I will,” said Félicia, as she drew the curtain aside. “Say!” she cried shrilly, “and what are you doing here, Michael?” She seemed to grow taller as he looked at her, and towered above him so magnificently that he was conscious of actual fear. He tried to bluster the matter out. “And if I am here, madame, has not your husband a right to--to----” “To go through my private papers?” with deadly quietness. “Exactly. I claim that right, and I exercise it.” “And to break into my bureau?” Her quick eye had caught sight of the knife, and she took possession of it before he could prevent her. “Thanks for the warning. You may claim your right just as much as ever you want to, but you’ve exercised it for the last time.” “In that you will find yourself mistaken, madame.” “You are pretty much mistaken if you think you’ll have the chance of doing it again. Why, you little miserable----” she stopped suddenly. “But I won’t call you names. You’ll hear plenty before long from other people.” “In your present rank of life, madame, it is not the custom to make the world a sharer in family disputes.” “It is unavoidable at times,” drawled Félicia--“when a separation is to be arranged, for instance.” “This is preposterous. You have no grounds for anything of the kind.” “Just wait until I go way back to the States and ask for one.”