“Be at ease. It is only nine-twenty-three, and Mademoiselle Malva is less than three minutes away, and ready dressed. I was observing that I had gathered information which led me to anticipate this difficulty with the Minister of Fine Arts, and accordingly I took measures to protect myself. There is no such thing as absolute arbitrary power, dear Directeur, even in a Republic, and I have proved it. Mademoiselle Malva is in room No. 429 at the Grand Hotel, across the road.... Stay, she will not come without this note.” He handed out a small, folded letter from his waistcoat pocket. Then he added: “Adieu, Monsieur the Directeur. You have just time to reach the State entrance in order to welcome the Presidential and Imperial party.” At nine-thirty, Cecil and his friends were ushered by a trinity of subservient officials into their box, which had been mysteriously emptied of its previous occupants. And at the same moment the monarchs, with monarchical punctuality, accompanied by the President, entered the Presidential box in the middle of the grand tier of the superb auditorium. The distinguished and dazzling audience rose to its feet, and the band played the National Anthem. “You fixed it up then?” Belmont whispered under cover of the National Anthem. He was beaten, after all. “Oh, yes!” said Cecil lightly. “A trivial misconception, nothing more. And I have made a little out of it, too.” “Indeed! Much?” “No, not much! Two thousand francs. But you must remember that I have been less than half an hour in making them.” The curtain rose on the garden scene from “Faust.” IV. “My dear,” said Eve. When a woman has been definitely linked with a man, either by betrothal or by marriage, there are moments, especially at the commencement, when she assumes an air and a tone of absolute exclusive possession of him. It is a wonderful trick, which no male can successfully imitate, try how he will. One of these moments had arrived in the history of Eve Fincastle and her millionaire lover. They sat in a large, deserted public room, all gold, of the Grand Hotel. It was midnight less a quarter, and they had just returned, somewhat excited and flushed, from the glories of the gala performances. During the latter part of the evening, Eve had been absent from Cecil’s box for nearly half an hour. Kitty Sartorius and Lionel Belmont were conversing in an adjoining _salon_. “Yes,” said Cecil. “Are you quite, quite sure that you love me?” Only one answer is possible to such a question. Cecil gave it. “That is all very well,” Eve pursued with equal gravity and charm. “But it was really tremendously sudden, wasn’t it? I can’t think what you see in me, dearest.” “My dear Eve,” Cecil observed, holding her hand, “the best things, the most enduring things, very often occur suddenly.” “Say you love me,” she persisted. So he said it, this time. Then her gravity deepened, though she smiled.