"Well, just at present I'm in Madame's hands, you see. And I think we're getting to understand one another, some. Though whether we're going to continue to pull in the same team much longer seems considerably doubtful."
"I am very anxious to help you, Christabel, dear," put in Madame d'Artelle; and I knew from that "dear," pretty much what was coming.
"It would give me much pleasure to place what influence I have at your disposal, Miss Gilmore."
"I must say I find everybody's real kind," I answered, demurely. "There is General von Erlanger saying very much the same thing."
"You speak German with an excellent idiom," said the Count, with a pretty sharp look. "One is tempted to think you have been in Europe often before."
I laughed. "I was putting a little American into the accent, Count, as a matter of fact. I have a knack for languages. I know Magyar just as well. And French, and Italian, and a bit of Russian. I'm a student of comparative folk lore, you know; and I'm getting up Turkish and Servian and Greek."
"But surely you have been much in Europe?"
"I was in Paris three years ago;" and at that Madame d'Artelle looked away.
"So Madame told me," he said, suggestively. "It was there you met, of course. It was there you made your mistake about her, I think."
"What mistake was that?"