s.

Leaving the cafe at last, I beckoned a taxi and settled myself on its
cushions for a drive. Each new vista that greeted me was enchanting. The
pavements, the river, the buildings, the stately bridges,--all held the
same soft, silvery tint of pale French gray. In the Place de la Concorde
the fountains played as always, but--heart-warming change--the Strasburg
statue, symbol of the lost Lorraine and Alsace, no longer drooped under
wreaths of mourning, but sat crowned and garlanded with triumphant
flowers.

Like diminishing flies, the same eternal swarm of cabs and motors filled
the long vista of the Champs-Elysees between the green branches of the
chestnut trees. At the end loomed the Arc de Triomphe, beneath which the
hordes of the kaiser, in their first madness of conquest, had sworn
to march. Farther on, in the Bois, along the shady paths and about the
lakes, the French still walked in safety, because on the frontier their
soldiers had cried to the Teutons the famous watchword, "You do not
pass!" Noon was approaching, and at the Porte Maillot I consulted Miss
Falconer's card.

"Number 630, rue St.-Dominique," I bade the driver, the address falling
comfortably on my ears. I knew the neighborhood. Deep in the Faubourg
St.-Germain, it was a stronghold of the old noblesse, suggesting eminent
respectability, ancient and honorable customs, and family connections of
a highly desirable kind. It would be a point in Miss Falconer's favor
if I found her conventionally established--a decided point. Along most
lines I was in the dark concerning her, but to one dictum I dared
to hold: no girl of twenty-two or thereabouts, more than ordinarily
attractive, ought to be traveling unchaperoned about this wicked world.

I felt very cheerful, very contented, as my taxi bore me into old Paris.
The ancient streets, had a decided lure and charm. Now we passed a
quaint church, now a dim and winding alley, now a house with mansard
windows or a portal of carved stone. On all sides were buildings that in
the old days had been the _hotels_ of famous gentry, this one sheltering
a Montmorency, that one a Clisson or Soubise. It was just the setting
for a romance by Dumas. And, with a chuckle, I felt myself in sudden
sympathy with that writer's heroes, none of whom had, it seemed to me,
been enmeshed in a mystery more baffling or involved than mine.

"They've got nothing on my affair," I decided, "with their masks and
poisoned drinks and swor