"The Chevalier de Calembours wishes to be presented to you," said Margaret.
Those gleaming, chrysolite orbs flashed a full upward glare in the chevalier's face. He recoiled, he changed color, and became strangely silent.
"So glad to meet the chevalier," murmured madame, with an inimitable elegance of manner.
Monsieur's face relaxed; he drew near her, dazzled as with the eye of a rattlesnake.
"Incomparable madame, where have we met before?" inquired he, with soft insinuation.
She honored him with a glance of astonishment and an artless smile.
"Indeed I cannot say, chevalier," she minced, "unless we've met in dreams."
"Pardon the presumption, madame, mon amie," persisted the chevalier, growing very pale, "but I think we are not strangers."
Another change swept over Madame Hesslein's ever-changeful face; all resemblance of her late self disappeared, and a bold, brilliant, haughty creature sat in her place, smiling with supercilious amusement at the little Bohemian's blunder.
"I should indeed feel honored if monsieur would recall the circumstances of our acquaintance," she said, blandly; "for I am frequently accosted by strangers who vow that I am known to them, and who afterward discover that my resemblance to the person they took me for was owing solely to the Protean expression of my face. I can't help my face being like twenty other people's in a breath, can I, Miss Walsingham? But I would like to think that Chevalier Calembours had known me previously, for I always have a warm side to Frenchmen for a special reason."