He had risen, and unconsciously the young woman also had risen,—­balancing, measuring, watching, warding, in this contest, all too unequal.  Suddenly, with a swift and most charming smile she approached him a half step and held out her hand.

“You are a great man, Sir.  Your country has found you great.  I have always found the greatest men the simplest and most frank.  Therefore I know you will tell me—­you will satisfy any doubt I may feel—­If I should ask a question, you would not condemn me as presuming?”

“Certainly not.  Upon the contrary, my dear Countess, I should feel flattered.”

She looked at him for an instant, then came up to the side of the table beyond which he had taken his seat.  Leaning her chin upon her hand, her elbow upon the table, in a sudden posture of encounter, she asked him a question whose answer took him swiftly far back into his own past, into another and forgotten day.

“Did you ever hear of Mr. John Parish, Sir?” she demanded.

The suave countenance before her was at first blank, then curious, then intent.  His mind was striving to summon up, from all its many images, this one which was required.  It was a brain which rarely forgot, even though years had passed; and had it been able to forget, so much had been the better for the plans of the gentleman from Kentucky, and for the success of his proposed European mission.

At last, slowly, a faint flush passed over the face she was regarding so intently.  “Yes, I remember him very well,” he replied.  “He has not for very many years, been in this country.  He died abroad, some years since.  I presume you mean Mr. Parish of New York—­he is the only one I recall of that name at least.  Yes; I knew such a man.”

“That was very long ago?”

“It was when I was much younger, my dear Countess.”

“You knew him very well, then?”

“I may say that I did, Madam.”

“And you’ll tell me; then—­tell me, was it true that once, as a wild rumor had it, a rumor that I have heard—­that once you two played at cards—­”

“Was that a crime?” he smiled.

“But with him, at cards with him, Mr. John Parish, a certain game of cards with him—­one day,—­a certain winter day years ago, when you both were younger—­when the train was snowbound in the North?  And you played then, for what?  What were the stakes then, in that particular game with Mr. John Parish?  Do you chance to recall?”

“Madam, you credit me with frankness.  I will not claim even so much.  But since you have heard a rumor that died out long years ago—­which was denied—­which even now I might better deny—­since, in fact you know the truth—­why should I deny the truth?”

“Then you two played a game, at cards,—­for a woman?  And Mr. Parish won?  Was it not true?”

A new and different expression passed over the face of the gentleman before her.  Her chin still rested in her hand, her other arm, long, round, white, lay out upon the table before him.  He could see straight into her wide eyes, see the heave of her throat now under its shining circlet, see the color of her cheek, feel the tenseness of all her mind and body as she questioned him about his long forgotten past.