everybody--well, I suppose you--no one could help falling in love with
her, I should think."

"That's high praise to come from you," said the other. And Hartley said,
with a short, not very mirthful laugh:

"Oh, I don't pretend to be immune. We all--everybody who knows her.
You'll understand presently."

Ste. Marie turned his head a little and looked curiously at his friend,
for he considered that he knew the not very expressive intonations of
that young gentleman's voice rather well, and this was something
unusual. He wondered what had been happening during his six months'
absence from Paris.

"I dare say that's what I feel in the air, then," he said, after a
little pause. "It's not calamity; it's love.

"Or maybe," he said, quaintly, "it's both. L'un n'empeche pas I'autre."
And he gave an odd little shiver, as if that something in the air had
suddenly blown chill upon him.

They were passing the corner of the Chamber of Deputies, which faces the
Pont de la Concorde. Ste. Marie pulled out his watch and looked at it.

"Eight-fifteen," said he. "What time are we asked for--eight-thirty?
That means nine: It's an English house, and nobody will be on time. It's
out of fashion to be prompt nowadays."

"I should hardly call the Marquis de Saulnes English, you know,"
objected Hartley.

"Well, his wife is," said the other, "and they're altogether English in
manner. Dinner won't be before nine. Shall we get out, and walk across
the bridge and up the Champs-Elysees? I should like to, I think. I like
to walk at this time of the evening--between the daylight and the dark."
Hartley nodded a rather reluctant assent, and Ste. Marie prodded the
pear-shaped cocher in the back with his stick. So they got down at the
approach to the bridge, Ste. Marie gave the cocher a piece of two
francs, and they turned away on foot. The pear-shaped one looked at the
coin in his fat hand as if it were something unclean and
contemptible--something to be despised. He glanced at the dial of his
taximeter, which had registered one franc twenty-five, and pulled the
flag up. He spat gloomily out into the street, and his purple lips moved
in words. He seemed to say something like "Sale diable de metier!"
which, considering the fact that he had just been overpaid, appears
unwarrantably pessimistic in tone. Thereafter he spat again, picked up
his reins and jerked them, saying:

"He, Jean Baptiste! Uip, uip!" The unemotional white horse turned up the