promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started,
however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he
had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if
it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had
grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when
he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent
conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange
soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity
and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and
doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and
all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so
interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless
steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which
leads to the Bois de Boulogne.

Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but
there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great
cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite,
and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for
the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in
the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this
matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?"
the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that
a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house,
placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served
him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so
happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could
look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on
a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face
apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a