For some reason I came to be persuaded that she had left Paris,
that she had gone away; and I pictured her--a little
despairingly--on the borders of Lucerne, with the white Alps
in the sky above her,--or perhaps listening to the evening
songs on the Grand Canal, and I would try to feel the little
rocking of her gondola, making myself dream that I sat at her
feet. Or I could see the grey flicker of the pongee skirt in the
twilight distance of cathedral aisles with a chant sounding from
a chapel; and, so dreaming, I would start spasmodically, to hear
the red-coated orchestra of a cafe' blare out into "Bedelia,"
and awake to the laughter and rouge and blague which that dear
pongee had helped me for a moment to forget!

To all places, Poor Jr., though never unkindly, dragged me with
him, even to make the balloon ascent at the Porte Maillot on a
windy evening. Without embarrassment I confess that I was
terrified, that I clung to the ropes with a clutch which frayed
my gloves, while Poor Jr. leaned back against the side of the
basket and gazed upward at the great swaying ball, with his
hands in his pockets, humming the strange ballad that was his
favourite musical composition:

"The prettiest girl I ever saw

Was sipping cider through a straw-aw-haw!"

In that horrifying basket, scrambling for a foothold while it
swung through arcs that were gulfs, I believed that my sorrows
approached a sudden conclusion, but finding myself again upon