ome few seconds in
advance; and then, scaling three stairs at a time, overtake her at the
door of her apartment.

Flushed and breathless, I stand beside her with _Froissart_ in my hand.

"Pardon, Mademoiselle," I say, hurriedly, "for having involuntarily
forestalled you just now. I had just bought the book you wished to
purchase,"

She looks at me with evident surprise and some coldness; but says
nothing.

"And I am rejoiced to have this opportunity of transferring it to you."

Mademoiselle Dufresnoy makes a slight but decided gesture of refusal.

"I would not deprive you of it, Monsieur," she says promptly, "upon any
consideration."

"But, Mademoiselle, unless you allow me to relinquish it in your favor,
I beg to assure you that I shall take the book back to the bookseller
and exchange it for some other."

"I cannot conceive why you should do that, Monsieur."

"In order, Mademoiselle, that you may still have it in your power to
become the purchaser."

"And yet you wished to possess the book, or you would not have bought
it."

"I would not have bought it, Mademoiselle, if I had known that I should
disappoint a--a lady by doing so,"

I was on the point of saying, "if I had known that I should disappoint
you by so doing," but hesitated, and checked myself in time.

A half-mocking smile flitted across her lips.

"Monsieur is too self-sacrificing," she said. "Had I first bought the
book, I should have kept it--being a woman. Reverse the case as you
will, and show me any just reason why you should not do the
same--being a man?"

"Nay, the merest by-law of courtesy..." I began, hesitatingly.

"Do not think me ungracious, Monsieur," she interrupted, "if I hold that
these so-called laws of courtesy are in truth but concessions, for the
most part, from the strength of your sex to the weakness of ours."

"_Eh bien_, Mademoiselle--what then?"

"Then, Monsieur, may there not be some women---myself, for instance--who
do not care to be treated like children?"

"Pardon, Mademoiselle, but are you stating the case quite fairly? Is it
not rather that we desire not to efface the last lingering tradition of
the age of chivalry--not to reduce to prose the last faint echoes of
that poetry which tempered the sword of the Crusader and inspired the
song of the Trouvere?"

"Were it not better that the new age created a new code and a new
poetry?" said Mademoiselle Dufresnoy.

"Perhaps; but I confess I love old forms a