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But Elsa Mallaby was intensely human, and no one knew it better

than herself, as, one late afternoon, she sat at her mahogany

table, looking absently over the stubs in her check-book. She saw

that she had disbursed a great deal of money--more, perhaps, than

she would have under any other circumstances--but she frankly

acknowledged that she did not mind that, if only she achieved the

end toward which she was working.

For Elsa, more than any one on Grande Mignon, was a person of

ways and means.

She was one of those women who seem to find nothing in

self-communion. Hers was a nature destined for light and gaiety

and happiness. To sit in a splendid palace and mope over what had

happened was among the last things she cared to contemplate.