"Well, my frien'," she laughed gayly, "w'y don' you come wiz us?"

Blushing, he followed Cooley into the coach, to spend five happy hours,
utterly oblivious of the bright French landscape whirling by outside the
window.

There ensued a month of conscientious sightseeing in Paris, and that
unfriendly city afforded him only one glimpse of the Countess. She
whizzed by him in a big touring-car one afternoon as he stood on an
"isle of safety" at the foot of the Champs Elysees. Cooley was driving
the car. The raffish, elderly Englishman (whose name, Mellin knew,
was Sneyd) sat with him, and beside Madame de Vaurigard in the tonneau
lolled a gross-looking man--unmistakably an American--with a jovial,
red, smooth-shaven face and several chins. Brief as the glimpse was,
Mellin had time to receive a distinctly disagreeable impression of this
person, and to wonder how Heaven could vouchsafe the society of Madame
de Vaurigard to so coarse a creature.

All the party were dressed as for the road, gray with dust, and to all
appearances in a merry mood. Mellin's heart gave a leap when he saw that
the Countess recognized him. Her eyes, shining under a white veil, met
his for just the instant before she was quite by, and when the machine
had passed a little handkerchief waved for a moment from the side of the
tonneau where she sat.

With that he drew the full breath of Romance.

He had always liked to believe that _"grandes dames"_ leaned back in
the luxurious upholstery of their victorias, landaulettes, daumonts or