ever
favoring him, stood at his elbow. She guided him straight to a table in
the front row of the terrace where sat a black-haired, hard-featured
though comely youth deep in thought, in front of an untouched glass of
beer. At Aristide's approach he raised his head, smiled, nodded and
said: "Good morning, sir. Will you join me?"

Aristide graciously accepted the invitation and sat down. The young
man was another hotel acquaintance, one Eugene Miller of Atlanta,
Georgia, a curious compound of shrewdness and simplicity, to whom
Aristide had taken a fancy. He was twenty-eight and ran a colossal
boot-factory in partnership with another youth and had a consuming
passion for stained-glass windows. From books he knew every square
foot of old stained-glass in Europe. But he had crossed the Atlantic
for the first time only six weeks before, and having indulged his
craving immoderately, had rested for a span at Aix-les-Bains to
recover from aesthetic indigestion. He had found these amenities
agreeable to his ingenuous age. He had also, quite recently, come
across the Comte de Lussigny. Hence the depth of thought in which
Aristide discovered him. Now, the fact that North is North and South
is South and that never these twain shall meet is a proposition all
too little considered. One of these days when I can retire from the
dull but exacting avocation of tea-broking in the City, I think I
shall write a newspaper article on the subject. Anyhow, I hold
the theory that the Northerners of all nations have a common
characteristic and the Southerners of all nations have a common
characteristic, and that it is this common characteristic in each
case that makes North seek and understand North and South seek and
understand South. I will not go further into the general proposition;
but as a particular instance I will state that the American of the
South and the Frenchman of the South found themselves in essential
sympathy. Eugene Miller had the unfearing frankness of Aristide Pujol.

"I used rather to look down upon Europe as a place where people knew
nothing at all," said he. "We're sort of trained to think it's an
extinct volcano, but it isn't. It's alive. My God! It's alive. It's Hell
in the shape of a Limburger cheese. I wish the whole population of
Atlanta, Georgia, would come over and just see. There's a lot to be
learned. I thought I knew how to take care of myself, but this
tortoise-shell-eyed Count taught me last night that I coul