d of the beginning
was in sight. I suppose my manner was more encouraging. In any event,
one evening he took my hand and kissed it. From nine-and-ninety men out
of a hundred I should have thought nothing of such a thing. In Europe it
is an empty homage, a pantomime expressive of thanks. As I say, then, in
any other man I should not have given it a second thought, but he had
never done it before.

"The next day I lunched with Mrs. Bunker Hill. I mentioned his name; I
suppose it was running in my mind. And then, my dear, Fanny began. Well,
the things she told me about that transcendental young man were of such
a nature that when he next called I was not at home. He came again, of
course. And again. He sent me a note which I returned unopened. That, I
confess, was a foolish thing to do. It showed him that I was annoyed. I
might better have left it unanswered. After all, there is nothing so
impenetrable as silence. Finally, he got one of his friends to come and
reconnoitre. Indeed, he did not desist until I had an opportunity of
cutting him dead. I was angry, I admit it. And it was after that little
experience that I determined, the next time I felt myself going, I
would make sure beforehand where I was going to. H'm. I wonder what his
sister thought of him? You see, it was not that I had fallen in love;
the word was as unintelligible to me as before, but I had fancied that,
through him, I might intercept some inkling of its meaning, and I was
put out at having been tricked. _Ach! diese Maenner!_"

Beneath descending night the sky was gold-barred and green. In the east
the moon glittered like a sickle of tin. The air was warm and freighted
with the odors of August. You could hear the crickets hum, and here and
there was the spark of a fire-fly gyrating in loops of flame. From
across the meadows came the slumbrous tinkle of a bell.

She raised a gloved hand to her brow and looked down at the yellow road.
To one who loved her, the Helen for whom the war of the world was
fought was not so fair as she. And presently the hand moved about the
brow, and, resting a second's space on the coil just above the neck,
fell again to her side.

"Well," she continued, "you can see how it was. Even before the
illusion, disillusionment had come. That winter I went with the Bunker
Hills to Monaco. Were it not for the riff-raff, that place would be a
paradise in duodecimo. We had a villa, of course. One evening, shortly
after our arrival, w