dulously.

But she only laughed her gay, undaunted little laugh:

"It was worth it! Such moments are worth anything we pay for them! I
laughed; I pay. What of it?"

"But if I am partly responsible I wish to know----"

"You shall know nothing about it! As for me, I care nothing about it.
I'd do it again to-night! That is living--to go forward, laugh, and
accept what comes--to have heart enough, gaiety enough, brains enough
to seize the few rare dispensations that the niggardly gods fling
across this calvary which we call life! _Tenez_, that alone is living;
the rest is making the endless stations on bleeding knees."

"Yet, if I thought--" he began, perplexed and troubled, "--if I
thought that through my folly----"

"Folly! _Non pas!_ Wisdom! Oh, my blessed accomplice! And do you
remember the canoe? Were we indeed quite mad to embark for Paris on
the moonlit Seine, you and I?--I in evening gown, soaked with dew to
the knees!--you with your sketching block and easel! _Quelle
demenagement en famille!_ Oh, Garry, my friend of gayer days, was that
really folly! No, no, no, it was infinite wisdom; and its memory is
helping me to live through this very moment!"

She leaned there on her elbows and laughed across the cloth at him.
The mockery began to dance again and glimmer in her eyes:

"After all I've told you," she added, "you are no wiser, are you?
You don't know why I never went to the Fountain of Marie de
Medicis--whether I forgot to go--whether I remembered but decided that
I had had quite enough of you. You don't know, do you?"

He shook his head, smiling. The girl's face grew gradually serious:

"And you never heard anything more about me?" she demanded.

"No. Your name simply disappeared from the billboards, kiosques, and
newspapers."

"And you heard no malicious gossip? None about my sister, either?"

"None."

She nodded:

"Europe is a senile creature which forgets overnight. _Tant mieux_....
You know, I shall sing and dance under my sister's name here. I told
you that, didn't I?"

"Oh! That would be a great mistake----"

"Listen! Nihla Quellen disappeared--married some fat bourgeois, died,
perhaps,"--she shrugged,--"anything you wish, my friend. Who cares to
listen to what is said about a dancing girl in all this din of war?
Who is interested?"

It was scarcely a question, yet her eyes seemed to make it so.

"Who cares?" she repeated impatiently. "Who remembers?"

"I have remembered you," he