don't care for any soft sawder! I'm a pretty good fellow in my way,
but I know how to take care of myself!"

In fact, Major Alan Hawke at last recognized the existence of
a species of womanhood which he had never before met. Miss Genie
was frankly unconventional, and yet she was both hard-headed and
hardhearted. When he carefully dressed himself for the intellectual
feast of Mademoiselle Delande's "refined collation," he dimly
became aware that the role of unpaid bear leader to the Chicago
girl simply amounted to being an unsalaried valet de place! "As for
compromising that devil of a girl," he growled, "she could have
given the snake in the Garden of Eden long odds and beaten him
hollow, in subtlety." This view of the impeccability of the Chicago
epidermis was confirmed later when Hawke returned from the "Institute"
at the decorous hour of ten that evening. He was thoroughly happy,
for the sly Francois was ready to meet him at the door, whispering:

"I will be at your rooms at ten, and bring you the photographs. I
have a couple of hours of freedom then."

Mademoiselle Euphrosyne's pale, anemic nature had bloomed out under
the graceful attentions of the gallant officer, and gradually she
expanded, little by little unfolding the desiccated leaves of her
tranquil past, and, yielding, as of old, to the charm of youth and
good looks, the faded spinster told him all.

"I will sell my precious knowledge, bit by bit, to Madame Berthe,"
he ruminated. "Evidently the Louison dares not face this stony-faced
Swiss Medusa. The felites histoires of Francois will fill up my
mental notebook." Major Hawke then sat down at ease in the cafe