time they learned each other's names and professions. She was a
professor of drawing, as he supposed, the daughter of an artist who had
been dead several years, and was called Mademoiselle Phillis Cormier.
He was a physician for whom a brilliant future was prophesied, a man of
power, who would some day be famous; and, very naturally, their attitude
remained the same. There was no particular reason why it should change.
But accident made a reason. One summer day, at the hour when they
ordinarily took the train back to Paris, the sky suddenly became
overcast, and it was evident that a violent storm was approaching.
Saniel saw Phillis hurrying to the station without an umbrella, and, as
some friend had lent him one, he decided to speak to her for the first
time.

"It seems as if the storm would overtake us before we reach the station.
As you have no umbrella, will you permit me to walk beside you, and to
shelter you with mine?"

She replied with a smile, and they walked side by side until the rain
began to fall, when she drew nearer to him, and they entered the station
talking gayly.

"Your umbrella is better than Virginia's skirt," she said.

"And what is Virginia's skirt?"

"Have you not read Paul and Virginia?"

"No."

She looked at him with a mocking smile, wondering what superior men read.