ng out into the river. The
Paris of the rumbling, roaring auto buses, and the honking horns, and
the shrill cries, and the mad confusion faded away. There was the
palely glowing sky ahead, and on each side the black reflection of the
tree-laden banks, mistily mysterious now and very lovely. There was not
a ripple on the water and the Pont Alexandre III and the golden glory of
the dome of the Hotel des Invalides were ahead.

"Say, this is Venice!" exclaimed Max Tack.

A soft and magic light covered the shore, the river, the sky, and a soft
and magic something seemed to steal over the little boat and work its
wonders. The shabby student-looking chap and his equally shabby and
merry little companion, both Americans, closed the bag of fruit from
which they had been munching and sat looking into each other's eyes.

The long-haired artist, who looked miraculously like pictures of Robert
Louis Stevenson, smiled down at his queer, slender-legged little
daughter in the curious Cubist frock; and she smiled back and snuggled
up and rested her cheek on his arm. There seemed to be a deep and silent
understanding between them. You knew, somehow, that the little Cubist
daughter had no mother, and that the father's artist friends made much
of her and that she poured tea for them prettily on special days.

The bepowdered French girl who got on at the second station sat frankly
and contentedly in the embrace of her sweetheart. The stolid married
couple across the way smiled and the man's arm rested on his wife's
plump shoulder.

So the love boat glided down the river into the night. And the shore
faded and became grey, and then black. And the lights came out and cast
slender pillars of gold and green and scarlet on the water.

Max Tack's hand moved restlessly, sought Sophy's, found it, clasped it.
Sophy's hand had never been clasped like that before. She did not know
what to do with it, so she did nothing--which was just what she should
have done.

"Warm enough?" asked Max Tack tenderly.

"Just right," murmured Sophy.

The dream trip ended at St.-Cloud. They learned to their dismay that the
boat did not return to Paris. But how to get back? They asked questions,
sought direction--always a frantic struggle in Paris. Sophy, in the
glare of the street light, looked uglier than ever.

"Just a minute," said Max Tack. "I'll find a taxi."

"Nonsense! That man said the street car passed right here, and that we
should get off at the