“Delighted!” he said, smiling, and then explained that he had arrived from Ostend about two hours before and had taken rooms in the hotel. “You knew we were staying here?” Eve asked as he shook hands with her. “No,” he replied; “but I am very glad to find you again.” “Are you?” She spoke languidly, but her colour heightened and those eyes of hers sparkled. “Madame Lawrence,” Kitty chirruped, “let me present Mr. Cecil Thorold. He is appallingly rich, but we mustn’t let that frighten us.” From a mouth less adorable than the mouth of Miss Sartorius such an introduction might have been judged lacking in the elements of good form, but for more than two years now Kitty had known that whatever she did or said was perfectly correct because she did or said it. The new acquaintances laughed amiably, and a certain intimacy was at once established. “Shall I order tea, dear?” Eve suggested. “No, dear,” said Kitty quietly. “We will wait for the Count.” “The Count?” demanded Cecil Thorold. “The Comte d’Avrec,” Kitty explained. “He is staying here.” “A French nobleman, doubtless?” “Yes,” said Kitty; and she added, “you will like him. He is an archæologist, and a musician--oh, and lots of things!” “If I am one minute late, I entreat pardon,” said a fine tenor voice at the door. It was the Count. After he had been introduced to Madame Lawrence, and Cecil Thorold had been introduced to him, tea was served. Now, the Comte d’Avrec was everything that a French count ought to be. As dark as Cecil Thorold, and even handsomer, he was a little older and a little taller than the millionaire, and a short, pointed, black beard, exquisitely trimmed, gave him an appearance of staid reliability which Cecil lacked. His bow was a vertebrate poem, his smile a consolation for all misfortunes, and he managed his hat, stick, gloves, and cup with the dazzling assurance of a conjurer. To observe him at afternoon tea was to be convinced that he had been specially created to shine gloriously in drawing-rooms, winter-gardens, and _tables d’hôte_. He was one of those men who always do the right thing at the right moment, who are capable of speaking an indefinite number of languages with absolute purity of accent (he spoke English much better than Madame Lawrence), and who can and do discourse with _verve_ and accuracy on all sciences, arts, sports, and religions. In short, he was a phœnix of a count; and this was certainly the opinion of Miss Kitty Sartorius and of Miss Eve Fincastle, both of whom reckoned that what they did not know about men might be ignored. Kitty and the Count, it soon became evident, were mutually attracted; their souls were approaching each other with a velocity which increased inversely as the square of the lessening distance between them. And Eve was watching this approximation with undisguised interest and relish.