ously on. What I say has no meaning."

He dropped her hands and the colour came back somewhat into her face.

"What you say has importance, though," she answered. "I have the feeling
that you are somebody. Anyhow, I have watched you every time you came. I
think you know things. I believe you must be a great artist. I should
believe you--I do believe you. I see you don't think I'm any good.
Besnard didn't think so when he came to-day. I don't want to go on being
a fool."

As she spoke, from the other restaurant came the notes of a fiddle and
a flute, for two wandering musicians, habitues of these smaller cafes,
had wandered in to earn the price of their luncheon. They were playing,
not very well, but very plaintively, an old French song, one in vogue in
the Latin Quarter. The sun, still magnificently brilliant, had found its
way around to the back of the place, and over the court with the ruined
marbles the light streamed through the window and fell on Fairfax and
the little girl.

"What do you say," he suggested abruptly, "to coming with me for the
afternoon? Let's go on the top of a tram and ride off somewhere."

He rose, paid the man who came for his luncheon (the girl's score had
already been settled), and stood waiting. She fingered the tapes of her
closed portfolio, her lips still trembled. The sunlight was full on her,
shining on her hair, on her old worn cape, on the worn felt hat, on the
little figure which had been so full of courage and of dreams. Then she
looked up at Antony and rose.

"I will go," she said, and he picked up the portfolio, tucked it under
his arm, and they walked out together, through the smoky larger room
where part of the lunchers were joining in the chorus of the song the
musicians played. And this little handful of the Latin Quarter saw the
two pass out together, as two pass together often from those Bohemian
refuges. Some one, as the door opened and shut on Antony and the girl,
cried: "Vive l'amour!"

CHAPTER XII

On the way out to Versailles from the top of the tram, lifted high above
Paris and the river, alongside of the vulgar head, alongside of the
strange little English girl, Fairfax listened to the outpouring of her
heart. She took his interest for granted. With an appreciative
understanding of human nature, and as though she had been bearing a
burden for years which she had never let slip, she rested it now, and
her blue eyes on his, her hands in the old woollen g