And this was the woman who had been severe on the poor painted countess and her cavalier for daring to speak of their "sordid vices" in that first mountain sunset, and had even looked down upon the thin man's little innocent five franc flutters! M. Isidore, on his part, was anything but depressed. Of course, he was delighted with the luck of turning up just in time to be of service to Madame. It was singular that he had chosen that particular afternoon to call on friends staying in this place. The lady Madame had been so kind as to compliment upon her chic appearance was, in effect, the cause of his visit; she was his sister. Ermengarde's eyes widened. _His_ sister? An early prejudice regarding the veracity of foreigners, together with a memory of Olympian leniency towards falsity on certain topics, led her to condone this flagrant mis-statement of fact, and pass quickly to other subjects. M. Isidore was a man of singular charm; his eyes were liquid and soft, like a gazelle's. He could not even explain that the vulgar atrocity of flaring white masonry, that formed the centre of every picture of the mountains behind Monte Carlo, was neither a prison nor a half-finished barrack, but only the Riviera Palace Hotel, without some delicately allusive pleasantry, some unavowed tribute to the fascination of her presence. It was just when Mrs. Allonby had arrived at these favourable conclusions respecting M. Isidore's eyes and conversation that the Anarchist happened to pass the crowd of tables outside the café, and Ermengarde, smiling softly and not untenderly upon the Frenchman, happened to look up and meet the blazing ferocity of that baleful person's eyes, with a start of apprehension and astonishment that caused his truculent gaze to blanch before hers. "That dreadful man again--he never can look me straight in the face! That is the man I asked about the first day. Who is he?" she cried. "Celui-la, l'homme à la barbe bleue? Ah! the Pole? Of him I know nothing. He was at Les Oliviers, that is all, Madame. My friend, I have done you no wrong that you should look pistol shots at me, though my position is doubtless one to crack the heart with envy. He would like my blood in a cup to drink, Madame, hein?"