d
fist, got it to her lips. Another woman, too, had darted between him and
the other man, and she faced him. The gentle Berthe was become a little
tigress.

"Not that, not that!" It was Jacqueline's voice. "Listen, mon cheri,
I--I thank him. Au contraire, I do! And--and you must, too!"

Driscoll stared at all three, first at one, then at another. He
floundered, stupefied. Here was this loving girl, clinging to him as
though he might vanish, and he had left her that morning a disdainful
beauty. Then here was this Meagre Shanks with his mysterious ten
minutes, and here was this dumfounding product of those ten minutes.
Driscoll put forth an open hand.

"Dan," he muttered incoherently, "you're a--a wonder, too!"

Boone clenched the proffered hand in his own. "I never once thought,
Jack," he said earnestly, contritely, "never once, that she cared so
ever-_lastingly_ much."

"Well," said Driscoll, "don't do it again."

"Not unless," ventured Boone, "not unless she should ever want a little
antidote for ennui. By the way, mademoiselle, do you thank me for the
quaver of emotion, for the frisson?"

"Frisson?" she repeated scornfully, with loathing. For once she had been
unaware of the prized knife-like tremor. In the fear of losing one dear
she had lost consciousness of self. She had _lived_ the tremor, the
agony, and it was too dreadful, "No, monsieur," she said, "I want no
more of art. I--I want to _live_!"

"You needed something, though," said Berthe, "to make you find it out."

Driscoll looked curiously at the two girls.

"Yes, J-Jack'leen"--how quaintly awkward he was, trying her old tomboy
nickname without the "Miss!"--"Yes, what was the matter with you,
anyhow?"

"Parbleu, I forgot!" cried Jacqueline in dismay. "I was not to have
monsieur, no!" And Jacqueline's chin, tilting back with elaborate
hauteur, was meant to indicate that she was in her first mind about it.

Berthe laughed outright, and softly clapped her hands.

"Sho'," declared Mr. Boone, "the matter was nothing, nothing _at_
all!"

But before feminine caprices and scruples it is wiser to bow low into
the dust. Jacqueline turned on the editorial personage with vast
indignation. "You leave the room, Seigneur Troubadour," she commanded,
"and Berthe, you march with him. Haste, both of you!"

They went, meekly. Their attempt to hide content over the dismissal
together was extreme, but transparent.

"What was it?" Driscoll insisted, when he and