Helen

Front matter

Se 2 ae 3

Books bp Arthur Sherburne Harp

HELEN. A Novel.

II

Jack had returned from the Pont St. Louis in high spirits. So far as Helen could discover there was no particular reason for his enthusiasm except that he liked Mr. Fearing.

‘Don’t you ?”’ he asked.

‘‘T have n’t made up my mind yet, Jack.”

“Why, Helen, you don’t have to make up your mind when you like anybody. You just like them or you don’t.”

Helen laughed. So his name was Fearing. Jack admitted that he had asked him. And had he reciprocated Mr. Fearing’s confidences? He could not exactly remember. He had merely volunteered the information that his name was Jack — to facilitate conversation. Had Mr. Fearing asked any questions? No, nothing in particular. She teased him a little over this one-sided acquaintance, but without shaking his assurance. Mr. Fearing had said they should see each other again.

“‘He promised to show me his car, and he said “good-night’ when I said ‘good-bye,’ ’’ Jack asserted. |

“You dear, hopeful boy,’ she laughed.

“I wish I was going to America with him.”

Helen took the boy’s hand in her own with a

I2 caressing gesture. She was the repository of all his many hopes and few woes. His wish was preposterous, but she made no comment. Contact with his own race always set Jack’s blood on fire. With the dream which haunted his mind. she was in sympathy, a sympathy against whose impotence she was in constant revolt. Was it to remain forever a dream?

Her thought reverted to the incident of the day. It certainly was an extraordinary thing — the finding of her cross. At first she had been quite sure that she had lost it in the garden, but search had proved fruitless. And then Jack had remembered that she had gone to the gate with the Princess Ghica. What a dear, fascinating woman Aunt Tatia was, in spite of her plain face with its little flat nose, like the faces in Persian pictures. And what a life she had had, with her husband on his mission to Siberia, travelling in far-away, mysterious regions, living in huts covered with skins, in log dugouts on unmapped rivers, riding long days on a cavalry saddle with strange tribesmen. What a contrast to the monotonous life of the Villa Fontana! She glanced over to her grandmother, reading quietly at the far end of the room. In some indefinable way she felt that the monotony had been broken.

What an abrupt manner he had! “If it was your mother’s, why does your grandmother only lend it to you?”’

Curled up in the big chair by the fire, she smiled again. The question had gone to the root of the matter, like a knife — yet it was not an impertinence. If she had not asked it herself in so many words, it was not for that reason absolutely unfamiliar. The wonder was, not that he, the stranger, should have dared to ask it, but that he, the stranger, should have instantly laid his hand © on the very heart of her secret life, of the thought unspoken. How had he dared, what right had he, to ask it? and above all, why? with that quiet air of authority! Yet she had not resented it. It was so amusing, and so refreshing, like a cool breeze from the sea. She was tired of tepid speeches. The image of little M. Hermite, with his flowered waistcoat and insinuating voice, crossed her mind.

‘‘Grandmamma, did you ever know any one by the name of Fearing?”’

The Fearings? Certainly. It was a very distinguished New England family, which had formerly rendered important services to the country. She remembered the elder Fearing perfectly —a very courtly gentleman of the old school. There was a son, whom she had seen occasionally when he was a boy. He ought to have followed the family traditions and gone into the public service. But the times had changed. Gentlemen did not enter the public service any longer, or, if they did, the muddy waters of politics, the meannesses necessary to political success, soon rendered them unrecognizable. For nowadays no one regarded politics as a public service, but only as a means to private ends. The honest man, fearless enough to remain unsoiled by the contagion of his company, was paid for his integrity with defeat. She believed that after leaving the university young Fearing had gone into business. She had heard that he had been very successful — that is, had become immensely rich. To the younger generation success meant wealth.

She spoke with a mild disdain, as one associated with a past age whose manners and idols had had their day. :

In the deep chair before the fire Helen sighed. She was familiar with that air of detached interest which stood like a wall between her and life.

“You know, it was a Mr. Fearing who found my cross to-day.”

“Really.”

“Yes. Jack walked with him as far as the St. Louis bridge. He told Jack his name was Fearing.”

“‘Very likely. Everyone comes to the Riviera sooner or later.’””’ And Mrs. Lee resumed her book. :

It clearly meant nothing to her grandmother — no, nor to her either. Why should it? Yet something of Jack’s optimism lingered. ‘‘ You don’t have to make up your mind when you like anybody. You just like them or you don’t.”’ Perhaps Jack was right. Perhaps there was a surer, swifter instinct, which scorns the commonplace preliminaries to intimacy, — a voice from the crowd one sees without seeing, heard and answered even against the will.

The book had fallen into the lap and the eyes were closed. Opening the low window she stole noiselessly out into the garden.

The garden! How her grandmother loved its every tree and shrub and flower! She had wanted to escape from the stifling oppression of that silent room, and now, in the garden, she wanted to escape from the oppression of the garden itself. It might have been a spot in which they walked together, but by none of its paths had she ever found her way to her grandmother’s affection. That was the truth. She had never realized it as keenly as she did tonight. If it were not for Jack, and the Princess Ghica —

She went slowly down to the seat by the water’s edge where the sea opened between the oleanders in all its level splendor. Little waves lapped against the black rocks and fell back again — always back again. It seemed as if the next one, rippling in so bravely under the moonlight, would bring something — some news, from the far spaces where sea and sky met.

The night was chilly and she stole back again to the warmth of the fire. Jack had gone to bed.

She would go up and see if he was asleep. Her sense of responsibility for Jack was strong.

“Yes, grandmamma.”’

““My eyes are tired. Will you finish this chapter for me?”’

She went over to the reading-lamp and took the open book — “ The Recollections of a Quiet Life.”’

Ill

It was nearly ten o’clock that evening when Fearing, having motored over from Mentone, finished his dinner at the Hotel Majestic in Nice. Strolling down the corridor he stopped before the display of jewelry in the vitrine at the entrance to the salon. From the vitrine his glance wandered over the room, filled with that cosmopolitan medley of men and women that haunts the fashionable hotels of the Riviera in the season. A half-dozen scarlet-coated musicians were doing their utmost to render conversation impossible. Should he go in and study humanity, or retire to his own room?

Just then he caught sight of a lifted arm and the beckoning sign of a hand sparkling with rings. The Princess Ghica! He made his way slowly between the crowded tables with an answering sign of recognition.

“You here!’’ she exclaimed as he came up, — ‘in this dull place! what a chance! Sit down and talk to me.”

She gathered up her train, pushing the vacant chair toward him. The thought that the burden of conversation would not rest upon him crossed his mind.

“T did n’t know any place was dull where you were, Princess,’’ he said, moving the gauze scarf, the cigarette case, and the fan from the chair to the table. ‘‘Are you alone?”’

“No, Dimitri has gone to the Casino. We have promised to go to the ball at the Prefecture — but there is an hour yet.”

“I thought you were in China, or Thibet, or?

-“* Merci, for the compliment! You exile me as far away as possible. But you, in Nice —it is unthinkable.”’

*“‘I landed this morning in Genoa. Am I so out of place?’’

“You are certainly the last person I expected to see here. What is it? not health, surely — or have you abandoned money-making?’”’

Fearing laughed.

“You have a very sordid opinion of me. But you are right. I am here on business — of a kind. Not the money-making kind, however,”’ he added.

“Business, the everlasting business,’’ echoed the Princess, with her queer little accent. ‘‘One would suppose we were in New York again.”’

“‘T hope you don’t bear New York too much malice.”’

“I? on the contrary, I adore it. But your country is so expensive — for a poor Secretary.”

_ “You make a very pretty picture of indigence,”’ said Fearing, taking up the gold cigarette case. *“‘I remember your Samos cigarettes. May I have one? Suppose you tell me now what you are doing in Nice. Are you on leave?”’

‘Worse than that, much worse. We are en disponibilité! But we are hoping for Petersburg.”

*‘And meariwhile —”’

‘Meanwhile we are waiting, eating out the life, as you say in English. You are not taking coffee? No? Shall we go to the Casino and find Dimitri?”’

“If you wish.”

‘But I see you do not wish. You are right. It is a bore. We will sit here and — talk business.”’

“Obviously your opinion of me has changed since you left Washington. You did not overwhelm me with contempt in those days.”’

“‘Ah, but I have had informations about you.”

“‘Informations? Am I on the list of your police?”’

‘Very bad informations.” She nodded gravely. “In those days you were not rich.”’

He was familiar with the Princess’s indiscretions, easily condoned, because of her good nature. But the remark jarred a little. He did not wear his money on his sleeve.

She leaned forward on the table with a serious air of friendly interest, quite indifferent to the effect of her frankness.

“Why do you not give up this money-making — have you not enough?’”’

Her quick interest in the thing or person in hand was one of her charms.

*“‘It’s not as easy to drop one’s responsibilities as it is to change posts, you know,”’ he said quietly.

“‘So you will go on in this way, without pleasure —”’ he made a gesture of dissent — ‘“‘ without rest, then — fourmenté, all your life, to the end. Truly, I cannot — how do you say — make you out. To be a slave all one’s life!”’

His point of view was so radically different that he made no serious attempt to answer her.

“Men have to pay with work the price of power — for which women pay nothing,”’ he said simply.

She looked at him narrowly for a moment, then changed the subject with her usual abruptness.

“‘And you have not married?”’

éé No. ”?

“You are resolved against it. I see that plainly. You do not know the proverb of Siberia — the little smile of a woman will undo in an instant what a man with all his energies accomplishes in a lifetime. Some day a woman will smile upon you and you will be undone.”’

“You add fresh terrors to Siberia, Princess.”’

“‘Ah, Siberia!’”’ she sighed, with one of her swift revulsions. ‘‘I wish I were there. But it spoils the complexion. See how it has ruined mine.”’

Looking into the piquant face, he was thinking how much more interesting it was than mere beauty. Little of that did she have, but one rarely thought about it and never missed it.

‘fT refuse to condole with you,”’ he said, laughing.

She laughed too, frankly pleased, blowing away the smoke between them and half closing her long narrow eyes — Tartar eyes, as she herself called them, like those of Gogol’s horsemen peering above the tall grasses of the steppes.

‘‘No, I was not fishing. It is true, it is quite spoiled. Do you stay long in Nice?”’

‘“‘T think not. A day or two — perhaps.”’

““You amuse me, calculating time so carefully! You are in Nice, mon ami. In Nice time is not money.”

‘“‘Tf you insist on dragging in money any more I shall believe you think more of it than I do.”’

“Oh, but I think of it only because I have so little. If I had much I should not think of it at all.’’ She raised her hand to summon a passing waiter. ‘‘A green chartreuse — two?’ Fearing shook his head. She took another cigarette, offering him the open case, then settled back in her chair. ‘‘What are you going to do with your ‘day or two’?”’

‘‘T should be very glad to put one of them at your disposal.’’

She sat up with the eager animation of a child.

‘Really — you will do that? Bravo! Dimitri goes to Monte Carlo to-morrow for the shooting of pigeons. You will breakfast with me on the terrace at one, and afterwards — let me think — shall we go to Le Laghet and sit under the cypresses?’’

““You take a weight off my mind, Princess. I was afraid you were going to say Monte Carlo. Let us go to Le Laghet by all means.”’

“You fear Monte Carlo?”

“I? Not in the least. I detest the atmosphere. I am not a gambler.”’

- “Fie!” she exclaimed between sips of her chartreuse, ‘‘one does not use such horrid words. One plays, one does not gamble.”

“‘Do you make these fine distinctions in selfdefense?”

“‘I make them because I am so amiable. Oh, once in a while, a few francs, as one wastes a few francs over a vaudeville. But napoleons, never! — it is not worth it. But I have reflected. Le Laghet is too sad. We will go to the Villa Fontana. Do you know the Villa Fontana?”’

“The Villa Fontana,” he repeated slowly; ‘‘no.”’

“So much the better. It has a wonderful garden, and belongs to one of your countrywomen. You do not object to meeting your countrywomen? ”’

“Why should I?”

“Then it is settled. And at the Villa Fontana I will show you Helen.”

There was a note of promise in her announcement to which she observed Fearing made no response. What the expression on his face indicated was not clear, but she interpreted it without hesitation after her own fashion.

“You know Helen!”’ 7

‘‘T fell in with a boy on the road yesterday. He said his sister’s name was Helen’’— and then again — ‘‘but I suppose there is more than one Helen in the world.”’

‘The man who knows this Helen will not see the others,’’ she said decisively, tapping the table with her fan. “But how extraordinary! You landed in Genoa this morning and already —”’

“ Nothing is extraordinary when it is explained,” he interrupted. ‘‘Yes, I landed in Genoa this morning, early. I left my man on the quay, worried with customs officials over my motor, and took the first train, a very stuffy train, overcrowded and crawling most of the time in tunnels. I abandoned it at Bordighera in search of air and sun and walked to Mentone, where I got a car and motored here after dark. On the road I met a boy, a very interesting boy, who presented me to a young lady he said was his sister — or perhaps I inferred it. It was rather dark under the trees, but I might describe her sufficiently to identify her, if you wish me to try.”

‘“‘Do,”’ she said, with rising curiosity; “‘it will be amusing to hear you describe Helen. I myself would not even attempt it.”’

Fearing took up the gold cigarette case, fingering the monogram thoughtfully.

- “Thad better approach the subject cautiously, then,” he said. ‘‘Shall I begin with the boy? Just a plain boy, buoyant, frank, self-reliant, quite unconscious of being natural, but with none of the precocity that robs childhood of its charm — and very much in love with his sister. One knows just what sort of a man such a boy will make. We understood each other from the outset.”

_ She nodded, closing her eyes; then opened them wide again.

““Yes, that’s Jack. Go on.”

He hesitated a moment, taking refuge in another cigarette, then he said quietly, —

‘“‘I should rather say another Jack — modified by sex.”’

She made an impatient gesture.

““That’s an evasion, not a description.”

“‘It was too dark for details, Princess.”

‘‘But you saw something — tell me what you saw.”

A vision of the slender figure advancing under the trellis came back to him.

“‘Race,”’ he said, looking up; ‘‘the quality that would have marked her for the guillotine in the Revolution merely because the rabble have n’t got it, and which would have taken her up its steps without flinching.”

She drew a long breath of relief.

“You see very well in the dark — better than you know. Tell me what else you saw.”

‘‘Many things,”’ he laughed. ‘‘A keen sense of humor, self-control, self-will —”’

‘‘But most sensitive.”

“‘Of course,’ he assented. ‘‘AII blooded stock is.”’

She leaned forward on the table, crossing her arms before her impatiently.

‘‘Will you please come to the point. A woman’s face counts for something.”’

‘“‘Is n’t the identity established? I am not very good at describing faces.’’ She waited, silent. ‘‘Well — two delicately formed ears, white by contrast, under the hair — chestnut, perhaps — something pathetic in the eyes— and a small nose — does n’t it turn up a little?”

‘And nothing more!”’

‘No, not till she spoke.”

Her face broke into a satisfied smile. ‘‘ You see better in the dark than some people in broad daylight.”

‘‘Any one can see charm, Princess. It’s only beauty that we quarrel about. We only recognize the type that appeals to us.”’

“But Helen has beauty,’’ she protested; ‘‘not the sculptor’s — something infinitely more elusive —a gift she does not reveal to everyone.’’ Then, with one of her swift transitions, ‘‘ But there is a difficulty with Helen — she has no dot.”

“‘She has a grandmother.”

“Ah, but it is not so agreeable always to live with a grandmother.”

“Your sympathies must be severely taxed if they extend to every one who happens to live with a grandmother.”’

“‘ All the same, a young girl should not be shut up with an old woman. What is a woman to do if she does not marry?”

‘Sometimes the woman who does not care to is all the more desirable.”’

_ “Not the woman who really does not care, mon ami.”

“‘One never knows, Princess.”’

The white shoulders lifted scornfully.

“You are a very foolish person. Ask the desirable woman and she will tell you. But who told you,” she exclaimed suddenly, sitting bolt upright, “that Helen had a grandmother?”

*“‘She did. A grandmother is not a secret. Most people have one.”

The Princess Ghica refused to smile. Reticence always exasperated her.

“What else did she tell you?”’

“Oh, nothing one does not know. That grandmothers do not fill the vacant places — of mothers, for example.”’

She gave him a look of keen scrutiny.

“You are a most amazingly observing person — and most mysterious.”’

‘Just now I am rather a curious one. You seem to be greatly interested in my roadside acquaintances. May I ask why?”’

“Why! Mon Dieu, he asks me why! Helen’s mother and I were born on the same day, we had the same godmother, we were brought up together in the same convent — Helen is like my own child —and when a house has no cradles—’’ She stopped short with a little nervous laugh. “‘ Thank God I have not yet descended to lap dogs!”’ She dropped her cigarette in the tray and began to gather up her possessions. ‘‘I see my maid pacing the corridor like a wild animal. She wishes to tell me the carriage is waiting.”

He rose with her, opening a passageway between the chairs, taken aback by this unexpected outburst, and followed her in silence.

At the door of the coupé she turned, quite herself again.

“You will not come?”’

‘‘T am an indifferent dancer, Princess. I should disgrace you.”

‘“To-morrow, then, at one o’clock.’’

‘*At one. The Prefecture?”

She nodded, and he gave the order to the coachman.

In the hall the boy in buttons threw open the doors to the lift. He shook his head and started up the shallow stairs.

‘Pardon, monsieur,”’ said a voice at his elbow, ‘the chartreuse.”

He smiled. ‘“‘To be sure. I forgot it.”

His apartment was on the first floor. There were a number of letters on the table, but he threw open the shutters and stepping out on the balcony dropped into one of the wicker chairs.

‘When a house has no cradles.’’ How quickly the mask of frivolity had fallen and the heart of the woman had spoken. He had always liked the Princess. Somehow, in a single second he had gotten closer to her than in all the year of their former acquaintance.

Below, on the flagging of the court, carriages were coming and going. A lackey on the terrace was lowering the huge umbrellas striped in red and yellow. Under the glare of the arc lights the flowers in their formal beds looked ghastly. A tram, clanging its insistent gong, climbed the boulevard toward Cimiez. Beyond, between the roofs, the long lines of brilliant light marked the streets. Farther still was the broken line of the mountains and the level line of the sea. Sounds of music floated up from the pavilion on the quay.

Far away on the road to Ventimiglia he saw a little girl fleeing down the hillside among her scattering sheep. He wondered what she had done with his franc. Then the stupid brown eyes changed, the stocky figure vanished, and Helen stood at the gate of the Villa Fontana.

“‘A mighty nice boy,’ he said emphatically.

He went in, closed the shutters, and took up his letters.

IV

It was half past two. They had outstayed the other guests on the terrace, and, in the secluded corner overlooking the garden, were quite alone. The waiter had ceased to hover about the table, and they were left at last in peace over the coffee.

“What sort of a person is Mrs. Lee?” asked Fearing, looking up from the patterns he was tracing with his cane on the gravel.

A smile stole over the Princess Ghica’s face. She had her intuitions, and had been waiting with more than usual patience for a return to the conversation of the previous evening. That a grandmother should be the avenue of approach amused her. In this instance, however, her ordinarily trustworthy intuitions were at fault.

‘“‘Mrs. Lee? A very agreeable’ — she paused to select her word — “hostess. She has a garden, you know — not a salon. It is very diverting to drink a cup of tea there. Like the climate the Villa Fontana is one of the — do you say assets? —of awinter’s holiday. May I ask you why you are interested in Helen’s grandmother?”

If he noticed the touch of irony in her voice he paid no heed to it. Draining the last drop of coffee, he set the cup down deliberately before replying.

ae it was to find Helen I came to et Riviera.”

“To find Helen!” she repeated, sobered instantly by astonishment.

“‘Helen and Jack, to be exact. And what I

would like to have you do, since you know them so well, is to tell me what you can — what you are inclined to — about them generally.”’ - She stared at him, dumb with amazement. “The fact is,’’ he went on with provoking deliberation, reverting to his designs on the gravel, ‘‘the business you were rather contemptuous about last night concerns an estate of which I happen to be the executor, an estate in which Mrs. Lee’s grandchildren have an interest — quite a large interest.”

“Hector de Chavigny!’’ Her intuitions were on the right track now.

“Yes. It was strange that I should run upon upon them so, by pure accident, and I am extremely fortunate to have run upon you, since you know —”’

“Know! why, I —”’

“Wait a moment, please. Let me first justify my curiosity. There is rather a peculiar clause in Chavigny’s will which, after setting aside a certain sum for maintenance and education —”’

“But Helen is of age,’’ put in the Princess excitedly.

*‘—. goes on to say that the executor is authorised to increase that sum at his discretion if in his judgment the children’s happiness should require it. ‘Happiness,’ you know, is not a common word in legal documents. Perhaps that will explain my interest in the grandmother.”

‘‘ And last night you let me go to the ball —”’

‘“You must admit you left me rather abruptly. It was only at the last moment that you told me mel 99

She cut him short with a wave of the hand.

‘“Yes — yes — this will, this legacy — what does it amount to — for the children?”

“Oh, as to that I can’t say definitely. At the time of Chavigny’s death I was sailing for London, but changed to the Southern route to look the ground over. Roughly speaking, from what I know of his affairs, I should say there might be a million or so between them.”’

‘Dollars or francs?’’ she gasped.

‘‘Dollars.”’

‘‘Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! Think of it! Millions in each pocket for these children!”

“Tf you think in francs, yes — that, more or less. But before you answer my question I may as well tell you of one matter on which I have made up my mind already, irrespective of what that answer may be. About Jack. So far as he is concerned it was made up before I left him yesterday. He belongs to another race and country —a country of which he knows little, of which he has probably no recollection, yet which he longs for and regrets. Just now he’s a boy without a country. But he’s got the race instinct and I propose to give him his own.”

“‘How fast you go, mon amzi,’’ she murmured.

‘Not any faster or farther than I can see.”

A little gust of wind shook the leaves down on the white cloth. Fearing began pushing them about abstractedly with his knife.

“You see, Princess,’’ — he spoke dispassionately, as of another person, — ‘‘I myself was an only child, that is, a lonely child. A man can go through a wood without seeing or hearing the life on every side of him. That’s the way I went through my boyhood. None of the intimacies which come to the younger members of a large family came my way. That boy must n’t become a man without friends and interests, and this is no place for him to waste another day.’’ She nodded, approvingly. “As for his sister — that’s another matter.”’

“‘Quite,”’ said the Princess dryly.

He was very calm and cool to look at, smoothing out the wrinkles on the white cloth with his knife, his clean-cut, forceful face stamped with the » reserve and decision of his New England ancestry. Compelling her admiration, it also irritated her.

“Without really knowing anything about them,’’ he said, returning to his leaves again, ‘‘I supposed they were both mere children.”’.

‘‘T see,”

‘Now if I might remind you of certain things you said last night —”’

“Why not?’’ she intervened quickly.

“‘Because, possibly, you were not altogether serious — about living with a grandmother.”

‘“‘About living with a grandmother? the most serious possible. So you thought they were children!’””»— A gleam of amusement in her small eyes. ‘Shall I tell you what you are thinking now? In New York you said to yourself, ‘I will arrange this little affair of the children with the grandmother’; and now, in Nice, you are saying, ‘T will arrange this affair of the grandmother with the children.’”’

Fearing laughed. ‘‘That’s a fairly accurate statement,’’ he said candidly.

‘* Mon Dieu!”’ she said softly, relapsing into her first astonishment, ‘‘what a coup de thédtre! To walk into a room and say, ‘I bring you a fortune — freedom!’”’

“Freedom?”

‘Yes, certainly, for Helen it will be freedom. What will you do with her?”’

“You are building bridges I have n’t got to cross, Princess.”’

“‘Helen will cross her own bridges. It is in the blood.’’ She leaned back in her chair, incredulous. ““Do you mean to tell me that you know nothing —”’ :

“No,” he interrupted, ‘“‘nothing beyond what I learned yesterday — nothing beyond the fact that they were living somewhere here with their grandmother. Begin at the beginning, please, Princess.”

She tapped a fresh cigarette on the table.

“Let me think. It was twenty-three years ago a young American, studying in Paris at the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées, to enliven himself went one afternoon to the Sorbonne to hear a little philosophy. It was quite the fashion of that day to listen to a popular professor who was expounding the eclecticism of Cousin. All feminine Paris flocked to his lecture-room. At one of these lectures my young student, looking about him, observes a young girl who, not being interested in philosophy, is also looking about. Their eyes meet. The seed drops into the ground. Thereafter the eloquence of the lecturer is wasted on them. There is an eloquence more powerful than speech. Nevertheless, my young man returns the following week in order to hear Monsieur Cousin’s opinions on the True, the Beautiful, and the Good. On that occasion he followed a certain carriage to the Rue du Bac and adopted the fashion of Spanish novios — that is, of frequenting that street and of dividing his time between gazing at the windows of one of its houses and admiring the prints in the bookseller’s opposite. Was he rewarded because occasionally a curtain stirred at one of those windows? Probably. When one is hungry one is grateful for even a crumb. Of one thing I am positive — in distress one becomes devout. Monsieur, although a heretic, begins to attend mass regularly, and in the midst of his devotions the good God rewards him with a glance from eyes containing what is not written in the prayer-book.”’ She took another cigarette from her case, accepting the match he offered her. | “Well, one day of spring, when Paris goes to the country, the windows in the Rue du Bac are closed, the light of the world is quenched and Paris becomes a desert. Disconsolate, his studies finished, having no longer any object in life, monsieur returns to his own country. But on the very eve of his departure occurs one of those things we call destiny. He is walking along the Quai Voltaire when he sees in a bookstall on the parapet a coveted collection of the Annales des Ponts et Chaussées. It is incomplete, but on the assurance that the missing volumes will be sent to him he purchases it. The little god who selected these musty volumes for his purpose took good care that the missing ones should not be found. Perhaps you prefer to believe the dealer was a rascal. At all events, they do not arrive in New York, and after much waiting and innumerable letters which remain unanswered, the idea is conceived of lodging a complaint with the Consul-General of France. It required but a moment’s interview with that gentleman to learn that consuls-general do not trouble themselves about such trifles. He goes out, furious, to find a carriage standing before the door. Instantly his dear Annales are forgotten — for sitting in the landau of the Consul-General is the young girl of the Sorbonne.