verything else about the ball, when the young officer with
whom she had danced passed between the tables near her. He caught her
eye and bowed with a smile of so much meaning that March asked, "Who's
your pretty young friend?"

"Oh, that!" she answered carelessly. "That was one of the officers at
the ball," and she laughed.

"You seem to be in the joke, too," he said. "What is it?"

"Oh, something. I'll tell you some time. Or perhaps you'll find out."

"I'm afraid you won't let me wait."

"No, I won't," and now she told him. She had expected teasing, ridicule,
sarcasm, anything but the psychological interest mixed with a sort of
retrospective tenderness which he showed. "I wish I could have seen you;
I always thought you danced well." He added: "It seems that you need a
chaperon too."

The next morning, after March and General Triscoe had started off upon
one of the hill climbs, the young people made her go with them for a
walk up the Tepl, as far as the cafe of the Freundschaftsaal. In the
grounds an artist in silhouettes was cutting out the likenesses of
people who supposed themselves to have profiles, and they begged
Mrs. March to sit for hers. It was so good that she insisted on Miss
Triscoe's sitting in turn, and then Burnamy. Then he had the inspiration
to propose that they should all three sit together, and it appeared that
such a group was within the scope of the silhouettist's art; he posed
them in his little bower, and while he was mounting the picture they
took turns, at five kreutzers each, in listening to American tunes
played by his Edison phonograph.

Mrs. March felt that all this was weakening her moral fibre; but she
tried to draw the line at letting Burnamy keep the group. "Why not?" he
pleaded.

"You oughtn't to ask," she returned. "You've no business to have Miss
Triscoe's picture, if you must know."

"But you're there to chaperon us!" he persisted.

He began to laugh, and they all laughed when she said, "You need a
chaperon who doesn't lose her head, in a silhouette." But it seemed
useless to hold out after that, and she heard herself asking, "Shall we
let him keep it, Miss Triscoe?"

Burnamy went off to his work with Stoller, carrying the silhouette with
him, and she kept on with Miss Triscoe to her hotel. In turning from the
gate after she parted with the girl she found herself confronted
with Mrs. Adding and Rose. The ladies exclaimed at each other in an
astonishment from which they