dame de Belle-Ile; but the days passed and they did not return.

One morning he found himself in an unhappy mood. It seemed to him that
his wits had come to a standstill; for three days no new mischief had
come the way of his idle hands, and his regular, dally, mischievous
practices had grown so regular as almost to have acquired the
tastelessness of duties. The peculiar brightness and gaiety of Monte
Carlo life had begun to pall upon him. Loneliness was eating into his
soul; for of all the French boys who paraded the gardens of the Temple
of Fortune, he could make nothing. Their costumes, which were of
velvet and satin and lace, revolted him; their lack of spirit, their
distaste for violent movement, their joy in parading their revolting
costumes filled him with wondering contempt. As for the little French
girls, he was at any time uninterested in girls; and these
spindle-shanked precocities walked on two-inch heels, and tried to
fascinate him with the graces of mature coquettes. His careful
politeness was hard put to it to conceal his distaste for their
conversation. Possibly he was hankering after a healthier life; but at
any rate he, who was generally so full of energy, had mooned listlessly
about the gardens all the morning, with a far-away look in his eyes,
and the air of a strayed seraph.

During his mooning about he had passed several times a little girl who
looked English. She sat on a seat in the far corner--a strange, shy,
timid child, watching with a half-frightened wonder the
strikingly-dressed women and children who strolled up and down,
chattering shrilly. He gave her but indifferent glances as he passed;
but, thanks to his father's careful training of his natural gift of
observation, the indifferent glance of that child of the world took in
more of a fellow-creature than most men's careful scrutiny. He saw
that she was frail and big-eyed, that her frock was ill-fitting and
shabby, her hat shabbier, her shoes ready-made, that she wore no
gloves, and that her mass of silky hair owed its unsuccessful attempts
at tidiness to her own brushing. He summed her up as that archetype of
patience, the gambler's neglected child.

Just before he went to his dejeuner, he saw that she was sitting there
still. He took that meal with his father and Lord Crosland; and
instead of hurrying off, directly he had eaten his dessert, to some
pressing and generally mischievous business, he sat listening to their
tal