I only came to have a talk about business, Catiche,"* muttered the prince, seating himself wearily on the chair she had just vacated.

" You have made the place warm, I must say," he remarked.

" Well, sit down: let's have a talk.

" *Catherine.

"I thought perhaps something had happened," she said with her unchanging stonily severe expression; and, sitting down opposite the prince, she prepared to listen.