In the meantime Mr. Bodery, Sidney Carew, and the Vicomte d'Audierne were smoking in the little room at the side of the porch. A single lamp with a red shade hung from the ceiling in the centre of this room, hardly giving enough light to read by. There were half-a-dozen deep armchairs, a divan, and two or three small tables--beyond that nothing. Sidney's father had furnished it thus, with a knowledge and appreciation of Oriental ways. It was not a study, nor a library, nor a den; but merely a smoking-room. Mr. Bodery had lighted an excellent cigar, and through the thin smoke he glanced persistently at the Vicomte d'Audierne. The Vicomte did not return this attention; he glanced at the clock instead. He was thinking of Signor Bruno, but he was too polite and too diplomatic to give way to restlessness. At last Mr. Bodery opened fire from, as it were, a masked battery; for he knew that the Frenchman was ignorant of his connection with one of the leading political papers of the day. It was a duel between sheer skill and confident foreknowledge. When Mr. Bodery spoke, Sidney Carew leant back in his chair and puffed vigorously at his briar pipe. “Things,” said the Englishman, “seem to be very unsettled in France just now.” The Vicomte was engaged in rolling a cigarette, and he finished the delicate operation before looking up with a grave smile. “Yes,” he said. “In Paris. But Paris is not France. That fact is hardly realised in England, I think.” “What,” inquired Mr. Bodery, with that conversational heaviness of touch which is essentially British, “is the meaning of this disturbance?” Sidney Carew was enveloped in a perfect cloud of smoke. For a moment--and a moment only--the Vicomte's profound gaze rested on the Englishman's face. Mr. Bodery was evidently absorbed in the enjoyment of his cigar. The smile that lay on his genial face like a mask was the smile of a consciousness that he was making himself intensely pleasant, and adapting his conversation to his company in a quite phenomenal way. “Ah!” replied the Frenchman, with a neat little shrug of bewilderment. “Who can tell? Probably there is no meaning in it. There is so often no meaning in the action of a Parisian mob.” “Many things without meaning are not without result.” Again the Vicomte looked at Mr. Bodery, and again he was baffled. “You only asked me the meaning,” he said lightly. “I am glad you did not inquire after the result; because there I should indeed have been at fault. I always argue to myself that it is useless to trouble one's brain about results. I leave such matters to the good God. He will probably do just as well without my assistance.” “You are a philosopher,” said Mr. Bodery, with a pleasant and friendly laugh. “Thank Heaven--yes! Look at my position. Fancy carrying in France to-day a name that is to be found in the most abridged history. One needs to be a philosopher, Mr. Bodery.”