again," he answered. "I suppose I couldn't run or
jump, but I certainly can walk very much like a human being. May I sit
down?"

Mlle. O'Hara put out one hand and drew the book closer to make a place
for him on the stone bench, and he settled himself comfortably there,
turned a little so that he was facing toward her.

It was indicative of the state of intimacy into which the two had grown
that they did not make polite conversation with each other, but indeed
were silent for some little time after Ste. Marie had seated himself. It
was he who spoke first. He said:

"You look vaguely classical to-day. I have been trying to guess why, and
I cannot. Perhaps it's because your--what does one say: frock, dress,
gown?--because it is cut out square at the throat."

"If you mean by classical, Greek," said she, "it wouldn't be square at
the neck at all; it would be pointed--V-shaped. And it would be very
different in other ways, too. You are not an observing person, after
all."

"For all that," insisted Ste. Marie, "you look classical. You look like
some lady one reads about in Greek poems--Helen or Iphigenia or Medea or
somebody."

"Helen had yellow hair, hadn't she?" objected Mlle. O'Hara. "I should
think I probably look more like Medea--Medea in Colchis before Jason--"

She seemed suddenly to realize that she had hit upon an unfortunate
example, for she stopped in the middle of her sentence and a wave of
color swept up over her throat and face.

For a moment Ste. Marie did not understand, then he gave a low
exclamation, for Medea certainly had been an unhappy name. He remembered
something that Richard Hartley had said about that lady a long time
before. He made another mistake, for to lessen the moment's
embarrassment he gave speech to the first thought which entered his
mind. He said:

"Some one once remarked that you look like the young Juno--before
marriage. I expect it's true, too."

She turned upon him swiftly.

"Who said that?" she demanded. "Who has ever talked to you about me?"

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I seem to be singularly stupid this
morning. A mild lunacy. You must forgive me, if you can. To tell you
what you ask would be to enter upon forbidden ground, and I mustn't do
that."

"Still, I should like to know," said the girl, watching him with sombre
eyes.

"Well, then," said he, "it was a little Jewish photographer in the
Boulevard de la Madeleine."

And she said, "Oh!" in a rather disap