Félise murmured a shy acknowledgement. She was too much dazed for coherent thoughts or speech. The discovery of the conditions in which her father lived, and the sudden withering of her faith in him, had almost immediately been followed by her transference into this warm wonder-house of luxury owned and ruled by this queenly young woman, so exquisite in her simple marvel of a dress. The soft lights, the pictures, the elusive reflections from polished wood, the gleam of heavy silver and cut glass, the bowl of orchids on the table, the delicate napery—she had never dreamed of such though she held herself to be a judge of table-linen—the hundred adjuncts of a wealthy woman’s dining room, all filled her with a sense of the unreal, and at the same time raised her poor fallen father in her estimation by investing him with the character of a magician. Dainty food was placed before her, but she could scarcely eat. Lucilla, to put her more at her ease, talked of Corinna and of Brantôme which she was dying to visit and of the quaint Englishman, she had forgotten his name, who had become a waiter. How was he getting on? “Monsieur Martin? Very well, thank you.” She put down the glass of wine which she was about to raise to her lips. For nearly an hour she had not thought of Martin. She felt sundered from him by many seas and continents. Since seeing him through what scorching adventures had she not passed? She had changed. The world had changed. Nothing would ever be the same again. Tears came into her eyes. Lucilla, observing them, smiled. “You like Monsieur Martin?” “Everybody likes him; he is so gentle,” said Félise. “But is that what women look for in a man?” asked Lucilla. “Doesn’t she want some one strong to lean on? Something to appeal to the imagination? Something more _panache_?” Félise thought of Lucien Viriot and his cavalry plume and shivered. No. She did not want _panache_. Martin’s quiet, simple ways, she knew not why, were worth all the clanking of all the sabres in the world put together. “That depends on temperament, mademoiselle,” said Félise, in French. Lucilla laughingly exclaimed: “You dear little mouse. I suppose a tom-cat frightens you to death.” But Félise was only listening with her outer ears. “I am very fond of cats,” she replied simply. Whereupon Lucilla laughed again with quick understanding. “I have a half-grown Persian kitten,” she said, “rather a beauty. Céleste, _apportez-moi le shah de Perse_. That’s my little joke.” “_C’est un calembour_,” said Félise, with a smile. “Of course it is. It’s real smart of you to see it. I call him Padishah.” Céleste brought a grey woolly mass of felinity from a basket in a dim corner and handed it to Félise. The beast purred and stretched contentedly in her arms. “Oh, what a dear!” she cried. “What a fluffy little dear! For the last week or two,” she found herself saying, “my only friend has been a cat.” “What kind of a cat?” asked Lucilla.