indow and stepped out on his balcony. The
two had met before, or at least seen each other before, once or twice.
The young man had seen the elder with some ladies at breakfast in the
hotel, and that evening he and his neighbor had taken coffee side by
side on the boulevards and smoked and exchanged a few words.

The elder man's strong, rather under-sized figure showed very clearly in
the moonlight. He had thick, almost shaggy hair, of an indefinable dark
brownish color--hair that was not curly, that was not straight, that did
not stand up, and yet could evidently never be kept down. He had a rough
complexioned face, with heavy eyebrows and stubby British whiskers. His
hands were large and reddish-brown and coarse. He was dressed
carelessly--that is, his clothes were evidently garments that had cost
money, but he did not seem to care how he wore them. Any garment must
fall readily into shapelessness and give up trying to fit well on that
unheeding figure. The Briton did not seem exactly what one would at once
assume to be a gentleman. Yet he was not vulgar, and he was evidently
quite at his ease with himself. He looked somehow like a man who had
money or power of some kind, and who did not care whether people knew it
or did not know it. Our younger Briton had at the first glance taken him
for the ordinary English father of a family, travelling with his
womankind. But he had not seen him for two minutes at the breakfast
table before he observed that the supposed heavy father was never in a
fuss, had a way of having all his orders obeyed without trouble or
misunderstanding, and for all his strong British accent talked French
with entire ease and a sort of resolute grammatical accuracy.

"Staying in Paris?" the elder man said--he too was smoking--when the
younger had replied to his salutation.

"No; I am going home--I mean I am going to England--to-morrow."

"Ay, ay? I almost wish I were too. I'm taking my wife and daughters for
a holiday. I don't much care for holidays myself. I hadn't time for
enjoyment of such things when I could enjoy them, and of course when you
get out of the way of enjoying yourself you never get into it again;
it's a sort of groove, I suppose. Anyhow, we don't ever enjoy much, our
people. You are English, I suppose?"

"Yes, I am English."

"Wish you weren't? I see."

Indeed, the tone in which the young man answered the question seemed to
warrant this interpretation.

"Excuse me; I didn't sa