f rootless Europeanised
Americans, who may almost be said to belong to a celibate order, so
little does the question of matrimony and family life affect their
existence. For a younger, more frivolous type, Europe might have a
merely matrimonial significance; but to Miss Robinson, and to thousands
of her kind, it meant an escape from displeasing circumstance and a
preoccupation almost monastic with the abstract and the aesthetic. To
Althea it had never meant merely that. Her own people in America were
fastidious and exclusive; from choice, they considered, but, in reality,
partly from necessity; they had never been rich enough or fashionable
enough to be exposed to the temptation of great European alliances.
Althea would have scorned such ambitions as basely vulgar; she had never
thought of Europe as an arena for social triumphs; but it had assuredly
been coloured for her with the colour of romance. It was in Europe,
rather than in America, that she expected to find, if ever, her ardent,
compelling wooer. And it irritated her a little that Miss Robinson
should not seem to consider such a possibility for her.

She did not accept her friend's invitation to go with her to the
Francais that evening; the weariness of the morning of shopping was her
excuse. She wanted to study a little; she never neglected to keep her
mind in training; and after dinner she sat down with a stout tome on
political economy. She had only got through half a chapter when Amelie
came to her and asked her if she could suggest a remedy for a young lady
next door who, the _femme de chambre_ said, was quite alone, and had
evidently succumbed to a violent attack of influenza.

'C'est une dame anglaise,' said Amelie, 'et une bien gentille.'

Althea sprang up, strangely excited. Was it the lady in black? Had she
then not gone yet? 'Next door, you say?' she asked. Yes; the stranger's
bedroom was next her own, and she had no _salon_.

'I will go in myself and see her,' said Althea, after a moment of
reflection.

She was not at all given to such impulses, and, under any other
circumstances, would have sent Amelie with the offer of assistance. But
she suddenly felt it an opportunity, for what she could not have said.
It was like seeing a curious-looking book opened before one; one wanted
to read in it, if only a snatched paragraph here and there.

Amelie protested as to infection, but Althea was a resourceful traveller
and had disinfectants for every occa