atmospheric effects of London, to the mysterious fusion
of darkly-piled city and low-lying bituminous sky; and the transparency
of the French air, which left the green gardens and silvery stones so
classically clear yet so softly harmonized, struck him as having a kind
of conscious intelligence. Every line of the architecture, every arch
of the bridges, the very sweep of the strong bright river between them,
while contributing to this effect, sent forth each a separate appeal
to some sensitive memory; so that, for Darrow, a walk through the Paris
streets was always like the unrolling of a vast tapestry from which
countless stored fragrances were shaken out.

It was a proof of the richness and multiplicity of the spectacle that
it served, without incongruity, for so different a purpose as the
background of Miss Viner's enjoyment. As a mere drop-scene for her
personal adventure it was just as much in its place as in the evocation
of great perspectives of feeling. For her, as he again perceived when
they were seated at their table in a low window above the Seine, Paris
was "Paris" by virtue of all its entertaining details, its endless
ingenuities of pleasantness. Where else, for instance, could one
find the dear little dishes of hors d'oeuvre, the symmetrically-laid
anchovies and radishes, the thin golden shells of butter, or the wood
strawberries and brown jars of cream that gave to their repast the last
refinement of rusticity? Hadn't he noticed, she asked, that cooking
always expressed the national character, and that French food was
clever and amusing just because the people were? And in private houses,
everywhere, how the dishes always resembled the talk--how the very
same platitudes seemed to go into people's mouths and come out of them?
Couldn't he see just what kind of menu it would make, if a fairy waved a
wand and suddenly turned the conversation at a London dinner into joints
and puddings? She always thought it a good sign when people liked Irish
stew; it meant that they enjoyed changes and surprises, and taking life
as it came; and such a beautiful Parisian version of the dish as the
navarin that was just being set before them was like the very best kind
of talk--the kind when one could never tell before-hand just what was
going to be said!

Darrow, as he watched her enjoyment of their innocent feast, wondered if
her vividness and vivacity were signs of her calling. She was the kind
of girl in whom certain peo