Bright-eyed grisettes flung coy looks at the young artist as he strode
along, admiring his well-knit figure, his handsome boyish features
chiseled as finely as a cameo, the crisp brown hair with a slight
tendency to curl, his velvet jacket and flowing tie. Jack nodded and
smiled at a familiar face now and then, or paused briefly to greet a
male acquaintance; for the Latin Quarter had been his little world for
three years, and he was well-known in it from the Boulevard St. Michel
to the quays of the Seine. He snapped his fingers at a mounted
cuirassier in scarlet and silver who galloped by him on the Point Royal,
and whistled a few bars of "The British Grenadiers" as he passed the
red-trowsered, meek-faced, under-sized soldiers who shouldered their
heavy muskets in the courts of the Louvre. The memory of Diane's
laughing countenance, as she leaned from the window, haunted him in the
Avenue de l'Opera.

"She's a good little girl, except when she's in a temper," he said to
himself, "and I love her every bit as much as I did when we were married
a year ago. Perhaps I was a fool, but I don't regret it. She was as
straight as a die, with a will of her own, and it was either lose her
altogether or do the right thing. I couldn't bear to part with her, and
I wasn't blackguard enough to try to deceive her. I'm afraid there will
be a row some day, though, when the Mater learns the truth. What would
she say if she knew that Diane Merode, one of the most popular and
fascinating dancers of the Folies Bergere, was now Mrs. John Clare?"

It was not a cheerful thought, but Jack's momentary depression vanished
as he stopped before the imposing facade of the Hotel Netherlands, in
the vicinity of the Opera. He entered boldly and inquired for Monsieur
Martin Von Whele. The gentleman was gone, a polite garcon explained. He
had received a telegram during the night to say that his wife was very