us go to breakfast--you are the kindred soul I have looked for all my
life. By-the-bye, I may as well know your name?"

Then, monsieur, this poor girl who had trembled before her laundress,
she told him a name which was going, in a while, to crowd the
Ambassadeurs and be famous through all Paris--a name which was to mean
caprices, folly, extravagance the most wilful and reckless. She
answered--and it said nothing yet--"My name is Paulette Fleury."

* * * * *

The piano-organ stopped short, as if it knew the Frenchman had reached
a crisis in his narrative. He folded his arms and nodded impressively.

"Voila! Monsieur, I 'ave introduced you to Paulette Fleury! It was her
beginning."

He offered me a cigarette, and frowned, lost in thought, at the lady
who was chopping bread behind the counter.

"Listen," he resumed.

* * * * *

They have breakfasted; they have fed the sparrows around their chairs,
and they have strolled under the green trees in the sunshine. She was
singing then at a little cafe-concert the most obscure. It is arranged,
before they part, that in the evening he shall go to applaud her.

He had a friend, young also, a composer, named Nicolas Pitou. I cannot