The Lost Ambassador | Page 8

The woman by his side seemed incomprehensible. I saw
now that she had eyes of turquoise blue and a complexion almost
waxenlike. She lifted her arms, and I saw that they, too, were covered
with bracelets of light-blue stones. Louis, following my eyes, touched
me on the arm.
"Don't look at her," he said warningly. "She belongs to him--Bartot. It
is not safe to flirt with her even at this distance."
I laughed softly and sipped my wine.

"Louis," I said, "it is time you got back to London. You are living here
in too imaginative an atmosphere."
"I speak the truth, monsieur," he answered grimly. "She, too,--she is not
safe. She finds pleasure in making fools of men. The suffering which
comes to them appeals to her vanity. There was a young Englishman
once, he sent a note to her--not here, but at the Cafe de Paris--at
luncheon time one morning. He was to have left Paris the next day. He
did not leave. He has never been heard of since!"
There was no doubt that Louis himself, at any rate, believed what he
was saying. I looked away from the young lady a little reluctantly. As
though she understood Louis' warning, her lips parted for a moment in
a faint, contemptuous smile. She leaned over and touched the man
Bartot on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear. When I next
looked in their direction I found his eyes fixed upon mine in a steady,
malignant stare.
"Monsieur will remember," Louis whispered in my ear softly, "that I
am responsible for his coming here."
"Of course," I answered reassuringly. "I have not the slightest wish to
run up against any of these people. I will not look at them any more.
She knew what she was doing, though, Louis, when she hung blue
stones about her with eyes like that, eh?"
"She is beautiful," Louis admitted. "There are very many who admire
her. But after all, what is the use? One has little pleasure of the things
which one may not touch."
We were silent for several minutes. Suddenly my fingers gripped Louis'
arm. Had I been blind all this time that they had escaped my notice?
Then I saw that they were sitting at an extra table which had been
hastily arranged, and I knew that they could have only just arrived.
"Tell me, Louis," I demanded eagerly, "who are those two at the small
round table on the left,--the two who seem to have just come in,--a man
and a girl?"

Louis turned his head, and I saw his lips come together--saw the quick
change in his face from indifference to seriousness. For some reason or
other my interest in these two seemed to be a matter of some import to
him.
"Why does monsieur ask?" he said.
"The idlest curiosity," I assured him. "I know nothing about them
except that they are distinctive, and one cannot fail, of course, to
admire the young lady."
"You have seen them often?" Louis asked, in a low tone.
"I told you, Louis," I answered, "that my mission in Paris is of the
nature of a search. For ten days I have haunted all the places where one
goes,--the Race Course, the Bois, the Armenonville and Pre Catelan,
the Rue de la Paix, the theatres. I have seen them nearly every day.
To-night they were at the Opera."
"You know nothing of them beyond that?" Louis persisted.
"Nothing whatever," I declared. "I am not a boulevarder, Louis," I
continued slowly, "and in England, you know, it is not the custom to
stare at women as these Frenchmen seem to do with impunity. But I
must confess that I have watched that girl."
"You find her attractive," murmured Louis.
"I find her delightful," I assented, "only she seems scarcely old enough
to be about in such places as these."
"The man," Louis said slowly, "is a Brazilian. His name is Delora."
"Does he live in Paris?" I asked.
"By no means," Louis answered. "He is a very rich coffee-planter, and
has immense estates somewhere in his own country. He comes over
here every year to sell his produce on the London market. I believe that
he is on his way there now."

"And the girl?" I asked.
"She is his niece," Louis answered. "She has been brought up in France
at a convent somewhere in the south, I believe. I think I heard that this
time she was to return to Brazil with her uncle."
"I wonder," I asked, "if she is going to London with him?"
"Probably," Louis answered, "and if monsieur continues to patronize
me," he continued, "he will certainly see more of them, for Monsieur
Delora is a client who is always faithful to me."
Notwithstanding its somewhat subdued