ettled anything
about that."

"Hasn't that lady settled it for you?"

"Yes, very likely she has," said Francie placidly enough. "I don't like
her so well as the others."

"You like the others very much?"

"Of course I do. So would you if they had made so much of you."

"That one at the studio didn't make much of me, certainly," Mr. Flack
declared.

"Yes, she's the most haughty," Francie allowed.

"Well, what is it all about?" her friend demanded. "Who are they
anyway?"

"Oh it would take me three hours to tell you," the girl cheerfully
sighed. "They go back a thousand years."

"Well, we've GOT a thousand years--I mean three hours." And George Flack
settled himself more on his cushions and inhaled the pleasant air. "I
AM getting something out of this drive, Miss Francie," he went on. "It's
many a day since I've been to the old Bois. I don't fool round much in
woods."

Francie replied candidly that for her too the occasion was most
agreeable, and Mr. Flack pursued, looking round him with his hard smile,
irrelevantly but sociably: "Yes, these French ideas! I don't see how you
can stand them. Those they have about young ladies are horrid."

"Well, they tell me you like them better after you're married."

"Why after they're married they're worse--I mean the ideas. Every one
knows that."

"Well, they can make you like anything, the way they talk," Francie
said.

"And do they talk a great deal?"

"Well, I should think so. They don't do much else, and all about the
queerest things--things I never heard of."

"Ah THAT I'll bet my life on!" Mr. Flack returned with understanding.

"Of course," his companion obligingly proceeded, "'ve had most
conversation with Mr. Probert."

"The old gentleman?"

"No, very little with him. I mean with Gaston. But it's not he that
has told me most--it's Mme. de Brecourt. She's great on life, on THEIR
life--it's very interesting. She has told me all their histories, all
their troubles and complications."

"Complications?" Mr. Flack threw off. "That's what she calls them.
It seems very different from America. It's just like a beautiful
story--they have such strange feelings. But there are things you can
see--without being told."

"What sort of things?"

"Well, like Mme. de Cliche's--" But Francie paused as if for a word.

Her friend was prompt with assistance. "Do you mean her complications?"

"Yes, and her husband's. She has terrible ones. That's why one must
forgiv