"What can he want with me ?" thought my lady.

"He was very empresse last night; surely he is not going to make love to me." And the notion of a gray-haired lover piqued her and made her smile again.
The colonel entered with the most courtly of bows, and she received him graciously.

He talked of the opera, of the ball, of the last new novel, of the latest marriage on the tapis, and all the time Lady Lisle's beautiful eyes were looking at him.

"It was not for this you came," she thought.

At last the colonel spoke openly.
"I have come to ask of you a great favor, Lady Lisle," he said.