“I must apologise for this intrusion,” he said, speaking in deep, soft accents which gave a singular charm to his simplest words, “But—­to be quite frank with you—­I thought I should find the Comtesse Hermenstein here.”

Angela smiled.  In her heart she considered the man a social reprobate, but it was impossible to hear him speak, and equally impossible to look at him without a vague sense of pleasure in his company.

“Sylvie was here a moment ago,” she answered, still smiling.

The Marquis took one or two quick impulsive steps forward—­then checking himself, stopped short, and selecting a chair deliberately sat down.

“I understand!” he said, “She wished to avoid me, and she has done so.  Well!—­I would not run after her for the world.  She must be perfectly free.”

Angela looked at him with a somewhat puzzled air.  She felt herself in a delicate and awkward position.  To be of any use in this affair now seemed quite impossible.  Her commission was to have told the Marquis that Sylvie had left Paris, but she could not say that now as Sylvie was still in the city.  Was she supposed to know anything about the Marquis’s dishonourable proposals to her friend?  Surely not!  Then what was she to do?  She stood hesitating, glancing at the fine, clear-cut, clean-shaven face of Fontenelle, the broad intellectual brows, and the brilliant hazel eyes with their languid, half-satirical expression, and her perplexity increased.  Certainly he was a man with a grand manner,—­the manner of one of those never-to-be-forgotten haughty and careless aristocrats of the “Reign of Terror” who half redeemed their vicious lives by the bravery with which they faced the guillotine.  Attracted, yet repelled by him, Angela had always been,—­even when she had known no more of him than is known of a casual acquaintance met at different parties and reunions, but now that she was aware of Sylvie’s infatuation, the mingled attraction and revulsion became stronger, and she caught herself wishing fervently that the Marquis would rouse himself from his lethargy of pleasure, and do justice to the capabilities which Nature had evidently endowed him with, if a fine head and noble features are to be taken as exponents of character.  Fontenelle himself, meanwhile, leaning carelessly back in the chair he had taken, looked at her with a little quizzical lifting of his eyebrows.

“You are very silent, mademoiselle,” he broke out at last, “Have you nothing to say to me?”

At this straight question Angela recovered her equanimity.

“I had something to say to you, Marquis,” she answered quietly, “but it was to have been said to-morrow.”

“To-morrow?  Ah, yes!  You receive your world of art to-morrow,” he said, “and I was to come and meet la Comtesse,—­and of course she would not have been here!  I felt that by a natural instinct!  Something psychological—­something occult!  I saw her carriage pass my windows up the Champs Elysees,—­and I followed in a common fiacre.  I seldom ride in a common fiacre, but this time I did so.  It was an excitement—­la chasse!  I saw the little beauty arrive at your door,—­I gave her time to pour out all her confidences,—­and then I arranged with myself and le bon Dieu to escort her home.”