dinners--olàlà! No more boarders, no more bores, cares,
responsibilities. Only my friends and--_life_! I feel like one
emerging from ten years in the galleys, ten years of penal servitude.
To the Pension Childe--bonsoir!'

'That's all very well for you,' her listener complained sombrely. 'But
for me? Where shall I stop when I come to Paris?'

'With me. You shall be my guest. I will kill you if you ever go
elsewhere. You shall pass your old age in a big chair in the best
room, and Camille and I will nurse your gout and make herb-tea for
you.'

'And I shall sit and think of what might have been.'

'Yes, we'll indulge all your little foibles. You shall sit and "feel
foolish"--from dawn to dewy eve.'


XII.

If you had chanced to be walking in the Bois-de-Boulogne this
afternoon, you might have seen a smart little basket-phaeton flash
past, drawn by two glossy frays, and driven by a woman--a woman with
sparkling eyes, a lovely colour, great quantities of soft dark hair,
and a figure--

'Hélas, mon père, la taille d'une déesse'--

a smiling woman, in a wonderful blue-grey toilet, grey driving gloves,