The Teeth of the Tiger. Морис Леблан

roomy eighteenth-century mansion, situated at the entrance to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, on the little Place du Palais-Bourbon. He had bought it, furnished, from a rich Hungarian, Count Malonyi, keeping for his own use the horses, carriages, motor cars, and taking over the eight servants and even the count's secretary, Mlle. Levasseur, who undertook to manage the household and to receive and get rid of the visitors—journalists, bores and curiosity-dealers—attracted by the luxury of the house and the reputation of its new owner.

      After finishing his inspection of the stables and garage, he walked across the courtyard and went up to his study, pushed open one of the windows and raised his head. Above him was a slanting mirror; and this mirror reflected, beyond the courtyard and its surrounding wall, one whole side of the Place du Palais-Bourbon.

      "Bother!" he said. "Those confounded detectives are still there. And this has been going on for a fortnight. I'm getting tired of this spying."

      He sat down, in a bad temper, to look through his letters, tearing up, after he had read them, those which concerned him personally and making notes on the others, such as applications for assistance and requests for interviews. When he had finished, he rang the bell.

      "Ask Mlle. Levasseur to bring me the newspapers."

      She had been the Hungarian count's reader as well as his secretary; and Perenna had trained her to pick out in the newspapers anything that referred to him, and to give him each morning an exact account of the proceedings that were being taken against Mme. Fauville.

      Always dressed in black, with a very elegant and graceful figure, she had attracted him from the first. She had an air of great dignity and a grave and thoughtful face which made it impossible to penetrate the secret of her soul, and which would have seemed austere had it not been framed in a cloud of fair curls, resisting all attempts at discipline and setting a halo of light and gayety around her.