her good night. From a corner of the theater Rokoff and Paulvitch
saw Monsieur Tarzan in the box of the Countess de Coude, and both
men smiled.

At four-thirty the following afternoon a swarthy, bearded man
rang the bell at the servants' entrance of the palace of the Count
de Coude. The footman who opened the door raised his eyebrows in
recognition as he saw who stood without. A low conversation passed
between the two.

At first the footman demurred from some proposition that the bearded
one made, but an instant later something passed from the hand of
the caller to the hand of the servant. Then the latter turned and
led the visitor by a roundabout way to a little curtained alcove
off the apartment in which the countess was wont to serve tea of
an afternoon.

A half hour later Tarzan was ushered into the room, and presently
his hostess entered, smiling, and with outstretched hands.

"I am so glad that you came," she said.

"Nothing could have prevented," he replied.

For a few moments they spoke of the opera, of the topics that were
then occupying the attention of Paris, of the pleasure of renewing
their brief acquaintance which had had its inception under such
odd circumstances, and this brought them to the subject that was
uppermost in the minds of both.