“Dear Captain Stuart,
“I had hoped to find you in, and so convey my invitation in person. We hope that you will come and share our simple meal to-night at La Solitude. Miss Fairfield is not at all well, but she tells me that she will be able to come down this evening. I do not include Monsieur Popeau in my invitation, as I understand he leaves Monte Carlo to-day.
“Yours sincerely,
“Cosima Polda.”
“It’s very decent of the Countess to ask me. I don’t see why I shouldn’t accept the invitation,” he said hesitatingly. “You don’t mind my leaving you, old chap?”
“I wish I could divine why the Countess Polda has asked you to dinner to-night, Stuart,” M. Popeau uttered these commonplace words in a hesitating, anxious tone.
“Perhaps Miss Fairfield suggested it,” said Stuart a little awkwardly.
“She may have done so.”
Then came a long pause between the two quaintly contrasted friends.
There was a soft spot in Hercules Popeau’s heart. Some thirty-five years before he also had had his innocent, beautiful romance. He had been engaged to a girl he loved, and just before their marriage she had developed consumption.