"I like them because they are different," obstinately.

He shifted his ground. "Marie-Louise, will you lunch with me at a cheap
little place around the corner?"

"Why a cheap little place?"

"Because I like the good soup, and the clean little German woman, and the
quiet and--the memories."

"What memories?"

"I used to go there when I was poor."

She entered eagerly into the adventure, and ordered her car to wait. Then
away they fared around the corner!

Within the homely little restaurant, Marie-Louise's elegance was more
than ever apparent. Her long coat of gray velvet with its silver fox
winked opulently from the back of her chair at the coarse table-cloth and
the paper napkins.

But the soup was good, and the German woman smiled at them, and brought
them a special dish of hard almond cakes with their coffee.

"I love it," Marie-Louise said. "It is like Hans Andersen and my fairy
books. Will you bring me here again, Dr. Richard?"

"I am glad you like it," he told her. "I wanted you to like it."

"I like it because I like you," she said with frankness, "and you seem to
belong in the fairy tale. You are so big and strong and young. I don't
feel a thousand years old when I am with you. You are such a change from
everybody else, Dr. Dicky."

Richard spoke the next day to Austin of Marie-Louise and the fat
Armenian. "She shouldn't be going to such shops alone. She has a romantic
streak in her, and they take advantage of it."

"She ought never to go alone," Austin agreed, "and I have told her. But
what am I going to do? I can rule a world of patients, Brooks, but I
can't rule my woman child," he laughed ruefully. "I've tried having a
maid accompany her, but she sends her home."

"I wish she might have gone to the Crossroads school, and have known the
Crossroads teacher--Anne Warfield. You remember Cynthia Warfield, sir;
this is her granddaughter."

Austin remembered Cynthia, and he wanted to know more of Anne. Richard
told him of Anne's saneness and common sense. "I am so glad that she can
be with my mother, and that the children have her in the school. She is
so wise and good."

He thought more than once in the days that followed of Anne's wisdom and
goodness. He decided to send the fan. He expected to go to Crossroads for
Christmas, but he was not at all sure that he should see Anne. Something
had been said about her going for the holidays to her Uncle Rod.

Was it only a year since he had seen he