and her mother were not so close as they had been, when she went to sleep
to the humming of a chanson of Cadiz. Her own latent motherhood,
however, kept stealing up out of the dim distances of childhood's
ignorance and, with modesty and allusiveness, whispering knowledge in
her ear. So it was that now she looked back pensively to the years she
had spent within sight and sound of her handsome mother, and out of the
hunger of her own spirit she had come to idealize her memory. It was
good to have a loving father; but he was a man, and he was so busy just
when she wanted--when she wanted she knew not what, but at least to go
and lay her head on a heart that would understand what was her sorrow,
her joy, or her longing.

And now here at last was come Crisis, which showed its thunderous head in
the gay dance, and shook his war-locks in the fire, where her mother's
guitar had shrieked in its last agony.

When all the guests had gone, when the bolts had been shot home, and old
Seraphe Corniche had gone to bed, father and daughter came face to face.

There was a moment's pause, as the two looked at each other, and then Zoe
came up to Jean Jacques to kiss him good-night. It was her way of facing
the issue. Instinctively she knew that he would draw back, and that the
struggle would begin. It might almost seem that she had invited it; for
she had let the Man from Outside hold her hand for far longer than
courtesy required, while her father looked on with fretful eyes--even
with a murmuring which was not a benediction. Indeed, he had evaded
shaking hands with his hated visitor by suddenly offering him a cigar,
and then in the doorway itself handing a lighted match.

"His eminence, Cardinal Christophe, gave these cigars to me when he