were anything I could possibly say I should want it to be in
Miss Viner's favour."

"You'd want it to be--yes! But could you make it so?"

"As far as facts go, I don't see how I can make it either
for or against her. I've already said that I know nothing
of her except that she's charming."

"As if that weren't enough--weren't all there OUGHT to
be!" Miss Painter put in impatiently. She seemed to address
herself to Darrow, though her small eyes were fixed on her
friend.

"Madame de Chantelle seems to imagine," she pursued, "that a
young American girl ought to have a dossier--a police-
record, or whatever you call it: what those awful women in
the streets have here. In our country it's enough to know
that a young girl's pure and lovely: people don't
immediately ask her to show her bank-account and her
visiting-list."

Madame de Chantelle looked plaintively at her sturdy
monitress. "You don't expect me not to ask if she's got a
family?"

"No; nor to think the worse of her if she hasn't. The fact
that she's an orphan ought, with your ideas, to be a merit.
You won't have to invite her father and mother to Givre!"