snatched it from his extended hand.

"My purse! My purse! And I thought it was gone for ever!" hugging it
hysterically to her heart. She feverishly tried to unlatch the clasps.

"You need not open it," he said quietly, even proudly, "I had not
thought of looking into it, even to prove your identity."

"Pardon! I did not think. I was so crazy to see it again." She laid
the purse beside her. "You see," with an hysterical catch in her
voice, "all the money I had in the world was in that purse, and I was
running away without any money, and only Heaven knows what misfortunes
were about to befall me. There were, and are, a thousand crowns in the
purse."

"A thousand crowns?"

"In bank-notes. Thank you, thank you! I am so happy!"--clasping her
hands. Then, with a smile as warm as the summer's sun, she added: "You
may--come and sit close beside me. You may even smoke."

Max grew light-headed. This was as near Heaven as he ever expected to
get.

"Open your purse and look into it," he said. "I'm a brute; you are
dying to do so."

"May I?"--shyly.

Then it came into Max's mind, with all the brilliancy of a dynamo
spark, that this was the one girl in all the world, the ideal he had
been searching for; and he wanted to fall at her feet and tell her so.

"Look!" she cried gleefully, holding up the packet of bank-notes.

"I wish," he said boyishly, "that you didn't have any money at all, so
I could help you and feel that you depended upon me."

She smiled. How a woman loves this simple kind of flattery! It tells
her better what she may wish to know than a thousand hymns sung in
praise of her beauty.

But even as he spoke a chill of horror went over Max. He put his hand
hurriedly into his vest-pocket. Fool! Ass! How like a man! In
changing his clothes at the consulate he had left his money, and all he
had with him was some pocket change.

The girl saw his action and read the sequence in the look of dismay
which spread over his face.

"You have no money either?" she cried. She separated the packet of
notes into two equal parts. "Here!"

He smiled weakly.

"Take them!"

"No, a thousand times, no! I have a watch, and there's always a
pawnbroker handy, even in Europe."

"You offered to help me," she insisted.

"It is not quite the same."

"Take quarter of it."

"No. Don't you understand? I really couldn't."

"One, just one, then!" she pleaded.

An idea came to him. "Very well; I w