CLOUDS--AND A CALL TO ARMS
The first cloud appeared towards the end of the third day at Bonestre. Blanche and Sir Leslie were left alone, and he hastened to improve the opportunity.
"The Duchess and your husband," he remarked, "appear very easily to have picked up again the threads of their old friendship."
"The Duchess," she answered, "is a very charming woman. I am sure that you find her so, don't you?"
"We are very old friends," he answered, "but I was never admitted to exactly the same privileges as your husband enjoys."
"The Duchess," she answered, calmly, "is a woman of taste!"
Sir Leslie muttered something under his breath. Blanche made a movement as though to take up again the book which she had been reading in a sheltered corner of the hotel garden.
"Don't you think," he sa
