"Allons donc!" said I, with disgust.

"That will be quite America enough," pursued my cynical hostess. "I
have kept a boarding-house for forty years. I have seen that type."

"Have such things as that happened chez vous?" I asked.

"Everything has happened chez moi. But nothing has happened more
than once. Therefore this won't happen here. It will be at the next
place they go to, or the next. Besides, here there is no young
American pour la partie--none except you, Monsieur. You are
susceptible, but you are too reasonable."

"It's lucky for you I am reasonable," I answered. "It's thanks to
that fact that you escape a scolding!"

One morning, about this time, instead of coming back to breakfast at
the pension, after my lectures at the Academy, I went to partake of
this meal with a fellow-student, at an ancient eating-house in the
collegiate quarter. On separating from my friend, I took my way
along that charming public walk known in Geneva as the Treille, a
shady terrace, of immense elevation, overhanging a portion of the
lower town. There are spreading trees and well-worn benches, and
over the tiles and chimneys of the ville basse there is a view of the
snow-crested Alps. On the other side, as you turn your back to the
view, the promenade is overlooked by a row of tall, sober-faced
hotels, the dwellings of the local aristocracy. I was very fond of
the place, and often resorted to it to stimulate my sense of the
picturesque. Presently, as I lingered there on this occasion, I
became aware that a gentleman was seated not far from where I stood,