 Chapter 7 The Adventure of the Miracle You have seen how Aristiti, by attaching himself to the Hotel du Soleil de l'Écosse, as a kind of glorified courier, had founded the Agença Pujol. As he personally was the Agença, and the Agença was he, it happened that when he was not in attendance at the Hotel, the Agença faded into space, and when he made his appearance in the vestibule and hung up his placard by the bureau, the Agença at once burst again into the splendor of existence. Apparently the fitful career of the Agença Pujol lasted some years. Whenever a chance of more remunerative employment turned up, Aristiti took it and dissolved the Agença. Whenever outrageous fortune chivied him with slings and arrows and a list to Paris, there was always the Agença waiting to be resuscitated. It was during one of these periodic flourishings of the Agença Pujol that Aristiti met the Ducs-Smiths. Business was slack, few guests were at the Hotel, and of those few, none desired to be personally conducted to the Louvre, or Notre-Dame, or the Monument in the Place de la Bastille, they mostly wore the placid expressions of folks engaged in business affairs instead of the worried look of pleasure-seekers. « Ma gueule de beau-cadon, » said Aristiti, lounging by the bureau and addressing his friend the manager, « this is becoming desperate. In another minute I shall take you out by main force and show you the Pont-Neuf. » At that moment the door of the stuffy salon opened and a travelling Briton, whom Aristiti had not seen before, advanced to the bureau and inquired his way to the Madeleine. Aristiti turned on him like a flash. « Sir, » said he, extracting documents from his pockets with lightning rapidity, « nothing would give me greater pleasure than to conduct you thither. My card, my tarot, my advertisement, » he pointed to the placard. « I am the managing director of the Agença Pujol under the special patronage of this hotel. I undertake all travelling arrangements from the Moulin Rouge to the Pyramid, and as you see my charges are moderate. » The Briton, holding the documents in a page hand, looked at the swift gesture director with portente salinity. Then with equal salinity he looked at the beau-cadon. « Monsieur Duxmeth, » said the latter, « you can repose every competence in Monsieur Aristiti Pujol. » Said Mr. Duxmeth. After another solemn inspection of Aristiti, he stuck a pair of gold rim glasses on his fleshy nose and perused the documents. He was a fat heavy man of about fifty years of age, and his scanty hair was turning grey. His puffy cheeks hung jowl-like, giving him the appearance of some odd dog, a similarity greatly intensified by the eye sockets, the lower lids of which were dragged down in the middle, showing the red like a blood ounce. But here the similarity ended, for the man's eyes, dull and blue, had the unspeculative fixity of a rabbit's. His mouth, small and weak, dribbled away at the corners into the jowls, which in their turn melted into two or three chins. He was decently dressed in grey tweeds, and wore a diamond ring on his little finger. Said he at last, and went back to the salon. As soon as the door closed behind him, Aristiti sprang into an attitude of indignation. Did you ever see such a bear? If I ever saw a bigger one, I would eat him without salt or pepper. Men noms dont chien. Such people ought to be mated to sausages. Blague me, Britannique! laughed Boca Don. Half an hour passed, and Mr. Duxmeth made no reappearance from the salon. In the forlorn hope of a client, Aristiti went in after him. He found Mr. Duxmeth glasses on nose, reading a newspaper, and a plump black-haired lady with an expressionless face, knitting a grey woollen sock. Why, they should be spending their first morning, and a crisp sunny morning, too, in Paris in the murky staleness of this awful little salon, Aristiti could not imagine. As he entered, Mr. Duxmeth regarded him vacantly over the top of his gold-rimmed glasses. I have looked in, said Aristiti, with his ingratiating smile, to see whether you are ready to go to the Madeleine. Madeleine, the lady inquired, softly, pausing in her knitting. Madame, Aristiti came forward, and hand on heart, made her the lowest of bows. Madame, have I the honour of speaking to Madame Duxmeth? Enchanted Madame, to make your acquaintance. He continued, after a grant from Mr. Duxmeth had assured him of the correctness of his conjecture. I am Mr. Aristiti Pujol, director of the Agença Pujol, and my poor services are absolutely at your disposal. He drew himself up, twisted his moustache, and met her eyes. They were rather sad and tired, with the roguish mockery of his own. She turned to her husband. Are you thinking of going to the Madeleine, Bartholomew? I am, Henrietta, said he, I have decided to do it, and I have also decided to put ourselves in the charge of this gentleman. Mrs. Duxmeth and I are accustomed to all the conveniences of travel. I may say that we are great travellers, and I leave it to you to make the necessary arrangements. I prefer to travel at so much per head per day. He spoke in a wheezy solemn monotone, from which all elements of life and joy seem to have been eliminated. His wife's voice, though softer in timbre, was likewise devoid of colour. My husband finds that it saves us from responsibilities, she remark, and overcharges, and the necessity of learning foreign languages, which at our time of life would be difficult. During all our travels, we have not been to Paris before, owing to the impossibility of finding a personally conducted tour of an adequate class. Then, my dear sir, cried Aristide, it is Providence itself that has put you in the way of the Ajansa Pujol. I will now conduct you to the Madeleine without the least discomfort or danger. Put on your hat, Henrietta, said Mr. Duxmeth, while this gentleman and I discussed terms. Mrs. Duxmeth gathered up her knitting and retired, Aristide, dashing to the door to open it for her. This gallantry surprised her ever so little, for a faint flush came to her cheek and the shadow of a smile into her eyes. I wish you to understand, Mr. Pujol, said Mr. Duxmeth, that being, I may say, a comparatively rich man, I can afford to pay for certain luxuries, but I made a resolution many years ago, which has stood me in good stead during my business life, that I would never be cheated. You will find me liberal, but just. He was as good as his word. Aristide, who had never in his life exploited another's wealth to his own advantage, suggested certain terms on the basis of so much per head per day, which Mr. Duxmeth declared with a sigh of relief to be perfectly satisfactory. Perhaps, said he, after further conversation, you will be good enough to schedule out a month's railway tour through France and give me an inclusive estimate for the three of us. As I say, Mrs. Duxmeth and I are great travellers. We have been to Norway, to Egypt, to Morocco, and the Canaries, to the Holy Land, to Rome, and lovely Lucerne. But we find that attention to the trivial detail of travel militates against our enjoyment. My dear sir, said Aristide, trust in me and your path, and that of the charming Mrs. Duxmeth will be strewn with roses. Whereupon Mrs. Duxmeth appeared arrayed for walking out, and Aristide, having ordered a cab, drove with them to the Madeleine. They alighted in front of the majestic flight of steps. Mr. Duxmeth stared at the classical portico, supported on its Corinthian columns with his rabbit-like, unspectacular gaze. He had those filmy blue eyes that never seemed to wink, and after a moment or two turned away. Said he. Mrs. Duxmeth, dutiful and silent, turned away also. This sacred edifice, Aristide began in his best Cisarone manner, was built after a classic model by the great Napoleon as a temple of fame. It was afterwards used as a church. You will observe, and if you care to, you can count, as a conscientious American lady did last week, the 56 Corinthian columns. You will see they are Corinthian by the acanthus leaves on the capitals. For the vulgar, who have no architectural knowledge, I have memoria tecnica for the instant recognition of the three orders. Cabbage's Corinthian, horns, iconic, anything else, Doric. We will now mount the steps and inspect the interior. He was dashing off in his eager fashion, when Mr. Duxmeth laid a detaining hand in his arm. No, he said only, I disapprove of popish interiors, take us to the next place. He entered the waiting Victoria. His wife meekly followed. I suppose the louvre is the next place, said Aristide. I leave it to you, said Mr. Duxmeth. Aristide gave the order to the cab man, and took the little seat in the cab, facing his employers. On the way down the Rue Royal and the Rue de Rivile, he pointed out the various buildings of interest. Maxime's, the Circular Royal, the Minestre de la Marine, Autel Continental. Two expressionless faces, two pairs of unresponsive eyes, met his merry glance. He might as well have pointed out the marvels of Kubla Khan's pleasure dome to a couple of guinea pigs. The cab stopped at the entrance to the galleries of the louvre. They entered and walked up the great staircase on the turn of which the winged victory stands, with the wind of God in her vesture proclaiming to each beholder the deathless, ever-soring, ever-conquering spirit of man, and heralding the immortal glories of the souls, when swept otherwise, by the wind of God, that are enshrined in the treasure houses beyond. There, said Aristide. No head, said Mr. Duxmit, passing it by with a scarcely glance. Would it cost very much to get a new one? asked Mrs. Duxmit timidly. She was three or four paces behind her spouse. It would cost the blood and tears and laughter of the human race, said Aristide. That was devilish good, wasn't it? remarked Aristide, when telling me this story. He always took care not to hide his light under the least possibility of a bushel. Duxmit looked at him in their lackluster way, and allowed themselves to be guided into the picture galleries, vaguely hearing Aristide's comments, scarcely glancing at the pictures, and manifesting no sign of interest in anything whatever. From the Louvre, they drove to Notre-Dame, where the same thing happened. The venerable pile, standing in perishable amid the vicissitudes of centuries, the phrase was that of the director of the Agent-Sapouchot, stirred in their bosoms no perceptible emotion. Mr. Duxmit grunted and declined to enter. Mrs. Duxmit said nothing. As with pictures and cathedrals, so it was with their food at lunch, beyond a solemn statement to the effect that in their quality of practiced stravelers, they made a point of eating the food and drinking the wine of the country, Mr. Duxmit did not allude to the meal. At any rate, thought Aristide, they don't clamor for underdone chops and tea. So far they were human. Nor did they maintain an awful silence during the repast. On the contrary, Mr. Duxmit loved to talk, in a dismal pompous way, chiefly of British politics. His method of discourse was to place himself in the position of those in authority, and to declare what he would do in any given circumstances. Now, unless the interlocutor adopts the same method and declares what he would do, conversation is apt to become one-sided. Aristide, having no notion of a policy, should he find himself exercising the functions of the British Chancellor of the F. Jekker, cheerfully tried to change the ground of debate. What would you do, Mr. Duxmit, if you were king of England? I should try to rule the realm like a Christian statesman, replied Mr. Duxmit. I should have a devil of a time, said Aristide. I beg your pardon, said Mr. Duxmit. I should have a, ah, I say, pardon. I should, he looked from one paralyzing face to the other, and throughout his arms. Ah, bleu, said he. I should decapitate your Mrs. Grande and make it compulsory for bishops to dance once a week in Trafalgar Square. Tiens, I would have it a capital offense for any English cook to prepare halfed mutton without a license, and I would banish all the bakers of the kingdom to Siberia. Ah, your English bread, which you have to eat still, so as to avoid a horrible death, and I would open two hundred thousand cafés, Montia, how thirsty I have been there, and I would make every English work girl do her hair properly, and I would ordain that everybody should laugh three times a day under pain of imprisonment for life. I am afraid, Mr. Pujol, remarked Mr. Duxmit seriously, you would not be acting as a constitutional monarch. There is such a thing as the British constitution, which foreigners are bound to admire, even though they may not understand. To be a king must be a great responsibility, said Mrs. Duxmit. Madam, said Aristide, you have uttered a profound truth, and to himself he murmured, though he should not have done so, nom de dire, nom de dire, nom de dire. After lunch they drove to Versailles, which they expected in the same apathetic fashion. Then they returned to the hotel, where they established themselves for the rest of the day in the airless salon. Mr. Duxmit, reading English newspapers, and his wife knitting a grey woolen sock. Mon vieux, said Aristide de Bocadon, they are people of a nightmare. They are automata, endowed with a faculty of digestion. Ce sont des gens invrais et blancs bleus. Paris provided them, apparently, with no entertainment. They started, after a couple of days, Aristide Ducé et Aspici Bougior, on their railway tour through France, to Aristide, a pilgrimage of unimaginable depression. They began with Châtres, continued with the Château of the Loire, and began to work their way south. Nothing that Aristide could do aroused them from their apathy. They were exasperatingly docile, made few complaints, got up, entrained, detrained, fed, excursion, slept, just as they were bitten. But they looked at nothing, enjoyed nothing, safe perhaps English newspapers and knitting, and uttered nothing by way of criticism or appreciation when Aristide attempted to review the wonders through which they had passed. They did not care to know the history, authentic or pugilic, of any place they visited. They were impressed by no scenes of grandeur, no corner of exquisite beauty. To go on and on, in a dull, non-sentient way, so long as they were spared all forethought, all trouble, all afterthought, seemed to be their ideal of travel. Sometimes Aristide, after a fruitless effort to capture their interest, would hold his head wondering whether he or the Ducs Smith couple were insane. It was a dragonfly personally conducting two moles through a rose garden. Once only, during the early part of their journey, did a gleam of joyousness pierce the dull glaze of Mr. Ducs Smith's eyes. He had procured from the bookstore of a station, a pile of English newspapers, and was reading them in the train, while his wife knitted the interminable sock. Suddenly he folded a daily telegraph and handed it over to Aristide so that he should see nothing but a half-page advertisement. The great capitals leaped to Aristide's eyes. Ducs Smith's delicate jams. I am the Ducs Smith, said he. I started and built up the business. When I found that I could retire, I turned it into a limited liability company, and now I am free and rich and able to enjoy the advantages of foreign travel. Mrs. Ducs Smith started, sighed, and dropped a stitch. Did you also make pickles, asked Aristide. I did manufacture pickles, but I made my name and jam. In the trade you will find it an honoured one. It is that, in every nursery in Europe, Aristide declared, with polite hyperbole, I have done my best to deserve my reputation, said Mr. Ducs Smith, as impervious to flattery, as to impressions of beauty. Péker, said Aristide to himself, how can I galvanize these corpses? As the soulless days went by, this problem grew to be Aristide's main solicitude. He felt strangled, choked, born down by an intolerable wake. What could he do to stir their vitality? Should he fire off pistols behind them, just to see them jump? But would they jump? Would not Mr. Ducs Smith merely turn his rabbit eyes, set in their blood-hound sockets, vacantly on him, and assume that the detonations were part of the tour's program? Could he not fill him up with conflicting alcohols and see what inebriety would do for him? But Mr. Ducs Smith declined insidious quotations. He drank only at mealtimes and sparingly. Aristide prayed that some taïs might come along, cast her spell upon him, and induce him to wink. He himself was powerless. His raciest stories fell on dull ears. None of his jokes called forth a smile. At last, having taken them to nearly all the historic chateau of Derein, without eliciting one cry of admiration, he gave Mr. Ducs Smith up in despair, and devoted his attention to the lady. Mrs. Ducs Smith parted her smooth black hair in the middle and fastened it in a knob at the back of her head. Her clothes were good and new, but some desolate dressmaker had contrived to invest them with an air of hopeless dowdiness. At her bosom she wore a great brooch containing intertwined locks of a grandfather and grandmother long since defunct. Her mind was as drearily equipped as her person. She had a vague idea that they were traveling in France, but if Aristide had told her that it was Japan, she would have neatly accepted the information. She had no opinions. Still, she was a woman, and Aristide, firm in his conviction, that when it comes to love-making, all women are the same, proceeded forthwith to make love to her. Madame, said he one morning, as she was knitting in the vestibule of the Hôtel de Fezant à Tours, Mr. Ducs Smith being engaged, as usual, in the salon with his newspapers, how much more charming that beautiful gray dress would be if it had a spot of color. His audacious hand placed a deep crimson rose against her corsage, and he stood away at arm's length, his head on one side, judging the effect. Magnificent, if Madame would only do me the honor to wear it. Mrs. Ducs Smith took the flower hesitatingly. I'm afraid my husband does not like color, she said. He must be taught, cried Aristide. You must teach him. I must teach him. Let us begin at once. Here is the pin. He held the pin delicately between finger and thumb, and controlled her with his roguish eyes. She took the pin and fixed the rose to her dress. I don't know what Mr. Ducs Smith will say. What he ought to say, Madame, is a bountiful providence, I thank thee for giving me such a beautiful wife. Mrs. Ducs Smith blushed and, to conceal her face, bent it over her resumed knitting. She made woman's time-honored response. I don't think you ought to say such things, Mr. Pujo. Madame said he, lowering his voice, I have tried not to, but K'vulivu, it was stronger than I, when I see you going about like a little grey mouse. The lady weighed at least twelve stone. You ought to be ravishing the eyes of mankind. I feel indignation here. He thunked his chest. My provence all heart is stirred. It is enough to make one weep. I don't quite understand you, Mr. Pujo. She said, dropping stitches recklessly. Ah, Madame, he whispered, and the rascals whispered on such occasions, good to be very seductive. But I will never believe. I am too old to dress myself up in fine clothes, she murmured. That's an illusion, said he, with a wide-flug gesture that will vanish at the first experiment. Mr. Ducs Smith emerged from the salon, daily telegraph in hand. Mrs. Ducs Smith shot a timid glance at him, and the knitting needles clicked together nervously. But the vacant eyes of the heavy man seemed no more to note the rose on her bosom than they noted any point of beauty in landscape or building. Arised he went away, chuckling, highly diverted by the success of his first effort. He had touched some hidden springs of feeling. Whatever might happen, at any rate, for the remainder of the tour, he would not have to spend his emotional force in vain attempts to not sparks out of jellyfish. He noticed, with delight, that at dinner that evening, Mrs. Ducs Smith, still wearing the rose, had modified the rigid sweep of her hair from the mid-parting. It gave just a wavy hint of coquetry. He made her a little bow and whispered, charming, whereupon she colored and dropped her eyes. And during the meal, while Mr. Ducs Smith discoursed on bounty-fed sugar, his wife and Aristide exchanged across the table the glances of conspirators. After dinner he approached her. Madame, may I have the privilege of showing you the moon of the rain? She laid down her knitting. Bartholomew, will you come out? He looked at her over his glasses and shook his head. What is the good of looking at moonshine? The moon itself I have already seen. So Aristide and Mrs. Ducs Smith sat by themselves outside the hotel, and he expounded to her the beauty of moonlight and its intoxicating effect on folks in love. Wouldn't you like, said he, to be lying on that white, pernished cloud with your beloved, kissing your feet? What odd things you think of! But wouldn't you, he insinuated? Her bosom heaved and swelled on a sigh. She watched the strip of silver for a while, and then murmured a wistful, Yes! I can tell you of many odd things, said Aristide. I can tell you how flowers sing, and what color there is in the notes of birds, and how a cornfield laughs, and how the face of a woman who loves can outdazzle the sun. Jamma, dumb, he went on after a pause, touching her little plump hand. You have been hungering for beauty and thirsting for sympathy. Isn't that so? She nodded. You have always been misunderstood. A tear fell. Our rascal saw the glistening drop with peculiar satisfaction. Poor Mrs. Ducs Smith, it was a child's game. Enfin, what woman could resist him? He had, however, one transitory qualm of conscience, for with all his vagaries, Aristide was a kindly and honest man. Was it right to disturb those classed depths? Was it right to fill this woman with romantic aspirations that could never be gratified? He himself had not the slightest intention of playing Lothario and of wrecking the peace of the Ducs Smith household. The realization of the saint-like purity of his aims reassured him. When he wanted to make love to a woman, it would not be to Mrs. Ducs Smith. I am doing a noble and disinterested act. I am restoring sight to the blind. I am giving life to one in a state of suspended emanation. I am playing the part of a soul-reviver, and par bleu, it is une j'en or j'arque that can do that. It takes un arrest du dépoujol. Having persuaded himself, in his southern way, that he was executing an almost divine mission, he continued, with his zest now sharpened by an approving conscience, to revive Mrs. Ducs Smith's soul. The poor lady who had suffered the blighting influence of Mr. Ducs Smith for twenty years, with never a ray of counteracting warmth from the outside, expanded like a flower to the sun under the soul-reviving process. Day by day she exhibited some fresh timid coquetry in dress and manner. Gradually she began to respond to Arustini's suggestions of beauty in natural scenery and exquisite building. On the ramparts of Aguilem, deities of towns and France, she gazed at the smiling valleys of the Charenta and the Sainte stretching away below, and of her own accord touched his arm lightly and said, How beautiful! she appealed to her husband. Said he. Once more, it had become a habit, she exchanged glances with Arustini. He drew her a little farther along, under pretext of pointing out the dreamy sweep of the Charenta. If he appreciates nothing at all, why on earth does he travel? Her eyelids fluttered upwards for a fraction of a second. It's his mania, she said. He can never rest at home. He must always be going, on and on. How can you endure it? he asked. She sighed. It is better now that you can teach me how to look at things. Good, thought Arustini, when I leave them, she can teach him to look at things and revive his soul. Truly, I deserve a halo. As Mr. Duxmouth appeared to be entirely unperceptive of his wife's spiritual expansion, Arustini grew bolder in his apostolate. He complimented Mrs. Duxmouth to his face. He presented her daily with flowers. He scarcely waited for the heavy man's bag to be turned to make love to her. If she did not believe that she was the most beautiful, the most ravishing, the most delicate-sold woman in the world, it was through no fault of Arustini. Mr. Duxmouth went his pompous, unseeing way. At every stopping place, stacks of English daily papers awaited him. Sometimes, while Arustini was showing them the sights of a town, to which, by the way, he insisted on being conducted, he would extract a newspaper from his pocket and read with dull and dogged stupidity. Once, Arustini caught him reading the advertisements for cooks and housemaids. In these circumstances, Mrs. Duxmouth spiritually expanded at an alarming rate, and correspondingly dwindled the progress of Mr. Duxmouth's sock. They arrived at Paraguay in Paraguay, land of truffles, one morning in time for lunch. Towards the end of the meal, the metrodotel helped them to great slabs of pate de foie gras made in the house. Most of the hotel keepers in Paraguay make pate de foie gras, both for home consumption and for exportation, and awaited expectant of their appreciation. He was not disappointed. Mr. Duxmouth, after a hesitating glance at the first mouthful, swallowed it, greedily devoured his slab, and, after pointing to his empty plate, said solemnly, Like Oliver, he asked for more. Tien thought Arustini astounded. Is he too developing a soul? But, alas, there were no signs of it when they went their dreary round of the town in the usual ramshackle-open cab. The Cathedral of Saint-Foix, extolled by Arustini and restored by Abadi, a terrible fellow who has capped with tops of pepper casters every pre-gothic building in France, gave him no thrill. Nor did the picturesque tumble down ancient buildings on the banks of the Dordogne, nor the delicate Renaissance façade in the cool, narrow Rue-de-Lis. We will now go back to the hotel, said Mr. Duxmouth. But have we seen it all? asked his wife. By no means, said Arustini. We will go back to the hotel, repeated her husband, and his expressionless tones. I have seen enough of Paraguay. This was final. They drove back to the hotel. Mr. Duxmouth, without a word, went straight into the salon, leaving Arustini and his wife standing in the vestibule. And you, madame, said Arustini, are you going to sacrifice the glory of God's sunshine to the manufacture of woolen socks? She smiled. She had caught the trick at last, and said in a happy submission, what would you have me do? With one hand he clasped her arm. With the other, in a superb gesture, he indicated the sunlit world outside. Let us drain together, cried he, the loveliness of Paraguay to its dregs. Greatly daring, she followed him. It was a rapturous escapade, the first adventure of her life. She turned her comely face to him, and he saw smiles round her lips, and laughed her in her eyes. Arustini, worker of miracles, strutted by her side, chokeful of vanity. They wandered through the picturesque streets of the old town with the gaiety of truant children, peeping through iron gateways into old courtyards, venturing their heads into the murk of black stairways, talking, on the part of Arustini, with mothers who nursed chuckling babes on their doorsteps, crossing the thresholds hitherto taboo of churches, and meeting the mystery of colored glass and shadows, and a heavy smell of incense. Her hand was on his arm when they entered the flagged courtyard of an ancient palace, a stately medley of the centuries, with wrought iron work in the balconies, duels, oriels, explicit renaissance ornaments on architraves, and a great central gothic doorway with great window openings above, through which was visible the stone staircase of honor, leading to the upper floors. In a corner stood a medieval well, the sides curiously carved. One side of the courtyard blazed in sunshine, the other lay cool and gray in shadow. Not a human form or voice troubled the serenity of the spot. On a stone bench against the shady wall, Arustini and Mrs. Duck Smith sat down to rest. ''Voilà!'' said Arustini. Here one can suck in all the past like an omelet. They had the feeling for beauty, those old fellows. ''I have wasted twenty years of my life,'' said Mrs. Duck Smith, with a sigh. ''Why didn't I meet someone like you when I was young?'' ''Ah, you don't know what my life has been, Mr. Pujol?'' ''Why not Arustini when we are alone?'' ''Why not, Henriette?'' He too had the sense of adventure, and his eyes were more than usually compelling, and his voice more seductive. For some reason or other, undivined by Arustini, over excitement of nerves perhaps, she burst into tears. ''Henriette, Henriette, neptere pa!'' His arm crept round her. He knew not how. Her head sank on his shoulder. She knew not why. Faithlessness to her lord was as far from her thoughts as murder or arson. But for one poor little moment in a lifetime, it is good to weep on someone's shoulder, and to have someone's sympathetic arm around one's waist. Pauvre petite de forme. And is it love she is pining for? She sobbed. He lifted her chin with his free hand, and, while less could a mortal apostle do, kissed her on her wet cheek. A bellow like that of an angry bull caused them to start asunder. They looked up, and there was Mr. Duck Smith within a few yards of them, his face aflame, his rabbit's eyes on fire with rage. He advanced, shook his fists in their faces. I've caught you. At last, after twenty years, I've caught you. Miss sure, cried Aristides, starting up. Allow me to explain. He swept Aristides aside, like an intercepting willow branch, and poured forth a torrent of furious speech upon his wife. I have hated you for twenty years. Day by day I have hated you more. I've watched you. Watched you. Watched you. But you, Sly Jade, you've been too clever for me till now. Yes, I followed you from the hotel. I dogged you. I foresaw what would happen. Now the end has come. I've hated you for twenty years, ever since you first betrayed me. Mrs. Duck Smith, who had sat with overwhelmed head in her hands, started bold upright, and looked at him like one thunderstruck. I betrayed you? She gasped in bewilderment. My God! When? How? What do you mean? He laughed for the first time since Aristides had known him, but it was a ghastly laugh that made the jowls of his cheeks spread horribly to his ears, and again he flooded the calm, stately courtyard with the raging violence of words. The veneer of easy life fell from him. He became the low-born petty tradesman, using the language of the hands of his jam factory. No, he had never told her. He had awaited his chance. Now he had found it. He called her names. Aristides interposed, his southern being a throb, with the insults heaped upon the woman. Say that again, miss sure, he shouted, and I will take you up on my arms like a sheep and throw you down that well. The two men glared at one another, Aristides standing bent with crooked fingers, ready to spring at the other's throat. The woman threw herself between them. For heaven's sake, she cried, listen to me, I have done no wrong. I have done no wrong now. I never did you wrong, so help me God. Mr. Duxmouth laughed again, and his laugh re-echoed round the quiet walls and up the vast staircase of honour. You'd be a fool not to say it, but now I'm done with you. Here you, sir. Take her away. Do what you like with her. I'll divorce her. I'll give you a thousand pounds. Never to see her again. Gougeon, tripla gougeon, cried Aristides, more incensed than ever at this final insult. Mrs. Duxmouth, deadly white, swayed sideways, and Aristides caught her in his arms and dragged her to the stone bench. The fat, heavy man looked at them for a second, laughed again, and sped through the Port Gougeon. Mrs. Duxmouth quickly recovered from her feinting attack and gently pushed the solicitous Aristides away. Merciful heaven, she murmured, what is to become of me? The last person to answer the question was Aristides, for once in his adventurous life resource failed him. He stared at the woman for whom he cared not the snap of a finger, and who he knew cared not the snap of a finger for him, aghast at the havoc he had wrought. If he had set out to arouse emotion in these two sluggish beasts, he had done so with a vengeance. He had thought he was amusing himself with a toy cannon, and he had fired a charge of dynamite. He questioned her almost stupidly, for a man in the comic mask does not readily attune himself to tragedy. She answered with a desolate frankness of a lost soul, and then the whole meaning, or the lack of meaning, of their inanimate lives was revealed to him. Absolute estrangement had followed the birth of their child nearly twenty years ago. The child had died after a few weeks. Since then he saw, and the generous blood of his heart froze as the vision came to him, that the vulgar half-sintient rabbit-eyed bloodhound of a man had nursed an unexpressed, dull, implacable resentment against the woman. It did not matter that the man's suspicion was vain. To Aristite the woman's blank amazement at the preposterous charge was proof enough. To the man the thing was real. For nearly twenty years the man had suffered the cancer to eat away his vitals, and he had watched and watched his blameless wife. Until now, at last, he had caught her in this folly. No wonder he could not rest at home. No wonder he was driven, eye-wise, on and on. Although he hated travel and all its discomforts, knew no word of a foreign language, knew no scrap of history, had no sense of beauty, was utterly ignorant, as every single one of our expensively state-educated English lower classes is, of everything that matters on God's earth. No wonder that, in the unfamiliarity of foreign lands, feeling as helpless as a ballet dancer in a cavalry charge, he looked to Cook or Lun or the Ajans Bougiorre to carry him through his uninspired pilgrimage. For twenty years he had shown no sign of joy or sorrow or anger, scarcely even of pleasure or annoyance. A tortoise could not have been more unemotional. The unsuspected volcano had slumbered. Today came disastrous eruption. And what was a mere laughing, crying child of a man, like Aristide Pougiorre, in front of a duck-smith volcano? What is to become of me? wailed Mrs. Duck-smith again. Ma foie, said Aristide, with a shrug of his shoulders. What's going to become of anyone who can foretell what will happen in a minute's time? Tien, he added, kindly laying his hand on the sobbing woman's shoulder, be comforted, my poor Henriette, just as nothing in this world is as good as we hope, so nothing is as bad as we fear. Moyen, all is not lost yet, we must return to the hotel. She, weepingly, acquiesced. They walked through the quiet streets, like children whose truancy had been discovered and who were creeping back to condine punishment at school. When they reached the hotel, Mrs. Duck-smith went straight up to the woman's haven, her bedroom. Aristide tugged at his van dyke beard in dire perplexity. The situation was too pregnant with tragedy for him to run away and leave the pair to deal with it as best they could. But what was he to do? He sat down in the vestibule and tried to think. The landlord, an unstoppable gramophone of guerrilla tea, entered by the street door and bearing down upon him, put him to flight. He too sought his bedroom, a cool apartment, with a balcony outside the French window. On this balcony, which stretched along the whole range of first-floor bedrooms, he stood for a while, pondering deeply. Then in an absent way he overstepped the limit of his own room frontage. A queer sound startled him. He paused, glanced through the open window, and there he saw a sight which for a moment paralyzed him. Recovering command of his muscles, he tiptoed his way back. He remembered now that the three rooms adjoined. Next to his was Mr. Duxmouth's, and then came Mrs. Duxmouth's. It was Mr. Duxmouth whom he had seen. Suddenly his dark face became luminous with laughter, his eyes glowed, he threw his hat in the air, and danced with glee about the room. Having thus worked off the first intoxication of his idea, he flung his few articles of attire into toilet necessaries into his bag, strapped it, and darted in his dragonfly way into the corridor, and tapped softly at Mrs. Duxmouth's door. She opened it, he put his finger to his lips. Madame, he whispered to bringing to bear on her all the mocking magnetism of his eyes, if you value your happiness you will do exactly what I tell you. You will obey me implicitly. You must not ask questions, pack your trunks at once, and ten minutes time the porter will come for them. She looked at him with a scared face. But what am I going to do? You are going to revenge yourself on your husband. But I don't want to, she replied piteously. I do, said he, begin, Madame, every moment is precious. In a state of stupefied terror the poor woman obeyed him. He saw her start seriously on her task, and then went downstairs where he held a violent and gesticulatory conversation with the landlord, and with a man in a Green Bay's apron summoned from some dim layer of the hotel. After that he lit a cigarette and smoked feverishly, walking up and down the pavement. In ten minutes time his luggage, with that of Mrs. Duxmouth, was placed upon the cab. Mrs. Duxmouth appeared trembling and tear-stained in the vestibule. The man in the Green Bay's apron knocked at Mr. Duxmouth's door and entered the room. I have come for the baggage of Mr. Duxmouth, said he. Baggage? What baggage? asked Mr. Duxmouth, sitting up. I have descended the baggage of Mr. Pujol, said the porter, in his stumbling English, and of Madame, and put them in a cab. And I naturally thought Mr. Duxmouth was going away too. Going away he rubbed his eyes, glared at the porter, and dashed into his wife's room. It was empty. He dashed into Aristides' room. It was empty too. Shrieking in articulate anathema, he rushed downstairs, the man in the Green Bay's apron, following at his heels. Not a soul was in the vestibule. No cab was at the door. Mr. Duxmouth turned upon his stupefied satellite. Where are they? They must have gone already. I fill the cab. Perhaps Mr. Pujol and Madame have gone before to make arrangements. Where have they gone to? In Perica there is nowhere to go to with baggage but the railway station. A decrepit vehicle with a gaudy linen canopy hove in sight. Mr. Duxmouth held it as the last victims of the flood must have held the ark. He sprang into it and drove to the station. There, in the so-don't-they, found Aristides mounting guard over his wife's luggage. He hurled his immense bulk at his betrayer. You, Blackard, where is my wife? Monsieur, said Aristides, puffing a cigarette, sublimely impudent and debonair. I declined to answer any questions. Your wife is no longer your wife. You offered me a thousand pounds to take her away. I am taking her away. I did not deign to disturb you for such a frightful as a thousand pounds. But, since you are here, he smiled engagingly and held out his curved palm. Mr. Duxmouth foamed at the corners of the small mouth that disappeared into the bloodhound jowls. My wife, he shouted, if he don't want me to throw you down and cramble on you. A band of loungers, whale-ray officials, peasants and other travelers awaiting their trains, gathered round. As the altercation was conducted in English, which they did not understand, they could only hope for the commencement of physical hostilities. My dear sir, said Aristides, I do not understand you. For twenty years you hold an innocent and virtuous woman under an infamous suspicion. She meets a sympathetic soul, and you come across her, pouring into his ear the love and despair of a lifetime. You have more suspicion. You tell me you will give me a thousand pounds to go away with her. I take you at your word. And now you want to stamp on me? Muffaw, it is not reasonable. Mr. Duxmouth seized him by the lapels of his coat. A gasp of expectation went around the crowd. But Aristides recognized an agonized appeal in the eyes, now bloodshot. My wife, he said hoarsely, I want my wife. I can't live without her. Give her back to me. Where is she? You had better search the station, said Aristides. The heavy man unconsciously shook him in his powerful grasp, as a child might shake a doll. Give her to me. Give her to me, I say. She won't regret it. You swear that? said Aristides, with lightning quickness. I swear it by God. Where is she? Aristides disengaged himself, waved his hand eerily towards Beringue, and smiled blandly, in the salon of the hotel waiting for you to prostrate yourself on your knees before her. Mr. Duxmouth gripped him by the arm. Come back with me. If you're lying, I'll kill you. The luggage, acquiried Aristides, confound the luggage, said Mr. Duxmouth, and dragged him out of the station. A cab brought them quickly to the hotel. Mr. Duxmouth bolted like an obese rabbit into the salon. A few moments afterwards, Aristides, entering, found them locked in each other's arms. They started alone for England that night, and Aristides returned to the directorship of the Agenza Pujol, but he took upon himself enormous credit for having worked a miracle. One thing I can't understand, said I, after he told me the story, is what put this sham elopement into your crazy head. What did you see when you looked into Mr. Duxmouth's bedroom? Ah, mon vie, I did not tell you. If I had told you, you would not have been surprised at what I did. I saw a sight that would have melted the heart of a stone. I saw Duxmouth wallowing on his bed, and sobbing as if his heart would break. It filled my soul with pity. I said, if that mountain of insensibility can weep and sob, in such agony it is because he loves, and it is I, Aristides, who have reawakened that love. Then, said I, why on earth didn't you go, and fetch Mrs. Duxmouth and leave them together? He started from his chair, and threw up both hands. Mon Dieu, cried he, you English, you are a charming people, but you have no romance, you have no dramatic sense. I will help myself to a whiskey and soda. The little fortified derelict city in the salt marshes of Provence. Although they regarded him with the same unimaginative wonder as a pair of alligators might regard an argous butterfly, their undoubted but freakish progeny, and although Aristides soared high above their heads in all phases of thought and emotion, the mutual ties remained strong and purdurable. Scarcely a year passed without Aristides struggling somehow south to visit Césvier, as he affectionately called them, and whenever fortune shed a few smiles on him, one or two at least, were sure to find their way to a morta in the shape of, say, a silver-mounted umbrella for his father, or a deuce of a Paris hat for the old lady's Sunday wear. Monsieur and Madame Pujol had a sacred museum of these unused objects the pride of their lives. Aristides was entirely incomprehensible, but he was a good son. A bad son in France is rare. But once Aristides nearly killed his old people outright, an envelope from him contained two large, caressive slips of bluish paper, which, when scrutinized with starting eyes, turned out to be two 1,000 franc notes. Mon Dieu, what had happened? Had Aristides been robbing the Bank of France, they stood paralyzed and only recovered a motive force when a neighbor suggested they're reading the accompanying letter. It did not explain things very clearly. He was in Ex-les-Bains, a place which they had never heard of, making his fortune. He was staying at the Hotel de l'Op, where Queen Victoria, they had heard of Queen Victoria, had been contented to reside. He was a glittery figure and a splendid Beaumont de, and it says here, would, by a few cakes, send a bottle of Van Cachette with the enclosed trifle to celebrate his prosperity, he would deem it the privilege of a devoted son. But Pujol, Sr., though wondering where the devil he had fished all that money from, did not waste it in profligate revelry. He took the eighty pounds to the bank and exchanged the perishable paper for one hundred solid golden Louis, which he carried home in a bag curiously bulging beneath his woolen jersey, and secreted it with the savings of his long life in the mattress of the conjugal bed. If only he hasn't stolen it, sighed the mother. What does it matter, since it is sewn up there all secure? said the old man. No one can find it. The Provençal peasant is as hard-headed and practical as a Scottish miner, and if left alone by the fairies, would produce no imaginative effect whatever upon his generation. But in his progenitor, he is more preposterously afflicted with changelings than any of his fellows the world over, which, though ethnologically an entirely new proposition, accounts for a singular number of things and inter-aulia for my dragonfly friend, Aristide Pujot. Now, Aristide, be it said, at the outset, had not stolen the money. It, and a vast amount more, had been honestly come by. He did not lie when he said that he was staying at the Hotel de l'Europe. Et le Bain, honoured by the late Queen Victoria, pedantic accuracy, requires the correction that the Auguste lady rented the annex of the Villa Victoria on the other side of the shady way, but no matter, and Hotel and its annex are the same thing. Nor did he lie in boasting of his prodigious prosperity. Aristide was in clover. For the first and up to now, as I write, the only time in his life he realised the gorgeous visions of pallid years. He was leading the existence of the amazing rich. He could drink champagne, not your miserable Tizane, at five francs a quart, but real champagne with year of vintage and a go-american, or a go anglais, marked on label, fabulously priced. He could dine lavishly at the casino restaurants, or at Nicolas's Prince of Restritures, among the opulent and the fair. He could clothe himself in attractive raiment. He could step into a fiacra and bid the man drive and not care whether he went or what he paid. He could also distribute five franc pieces to Lane Beggars. He scattered his money abroad with both hands, according to his expansive temperament, and why not when he was drawing wealth out of an inexhaustible fount? The process was so simple, so sure. All you had to do was to believe in the cards on which you staked your money. If you knew you were going to win, you won. Nothing could be easier. He had drifted into a sliver from Geneva on the lamentable determination of a commission agency in the matter of some patent fuel, with a couple of louis in his pocket, for learnly jingling the tale of his entire fortune. As this was before the days when you had to exhibit certificates of baptism, marriage, sanity, and bank balance before being allowed to enter the baccarat rooms, Aristide paid his two francs and made a beeline for the tables. I am afraid Aristide was a gambler. He was never so happy as when taking chances. His whole life was a gamble, with Providence holding the bank. Before the night was over he had converted his two louis into fifty. The next day they became five hundred. By the end of a week his garments were wadded with bank notes whose value amounted to a sum so stupendous as to be beyond need of computation. He was a celebrity in the place, and people nudged each other as he passed by. And Aristide passed by with a swagger, his head high and the end of his pointed beard sticking joyously up in the air. We see him one august morning in the plenitude of his success, lounging in a wicker chair on the shady lawn of the Hotel de l'Europe. He wore quite buckskin shoes. I began with these as they were the first point of his person to attract the notice of the onlooker. Lilac silk socks, a white flannel suit with a zigzag black stripe, a violet tie secured by a sapphire and diamond pin, and a rakish Panama hat. On his knees lay the matat. The fingers of his left hand held a fragrant corona. His right hand was uplifted in a gesture for he was talking. He was talking to a couple of ladies who sat nearby, one a mild-looking English woman of fifty dressed in black, the other her daughter, a beautiful girl of twenty-four. The Aristide should fly to feminine charms, like moth to candle, was a law of his being. That he should lie with shriveled wings at Ms. Arrington's feet was the obvious result. Her charms were of the winsome kind to which he was most susceptible. She had an oval face, a little mouth, like crumpled rose petals, so Aristide himself described it. A complexion, the mingling of ivory and peach blossom, Aristide again, a straight little nose, appealing eyes of the deepest blue veiled by sweeping lashes and fascinating fluffiness of dark air over a pure brow. She had a graceful figure and the slender foot below her white piquet skirt was at once the envy and admiration of ex-labin. Aristide talked. The ladies listened with obvious amusement. In the easy hotel way he had fallen into their acquaintance as the man of wealth, the careless player, who took five hundred Louis banks at the table with the five Louis minimum and cleared out the punt, he felt it necessary to explain himself. I am afraid he deviated from the narrow path of truth. What perfect English you speak, Ms. Arrington remarked, when he had finished his orang and had put the corona between his lips. Her voice was a soft contralto. I have mixed much in English society since I was a child, replied Aristide in his grandest manner. Fortune has made me know many of your county families and members of parliament. Ms. Arrington laughed. Our MPs are rather a mixed lot, Mr. Pujol. To me an English member of parliament is a hybrid conservative. I do not recognize the others, said Aristide. Unfortunately we have to recognize them, said the elder lady with a smile. Not socially Madame. They exist as mechanical factors of the legislative machine. But that is all. He swelled, as if the blood of the moroncies and the colonies boiled in his veins. We do not ask them into our drawing rooms. We do not allow them to marry our daughters. We only salute them with cold politeness when we pass them in the street. It's astonishing, said Ms. Arrington, how strongly the aristocratic principle exists in Republican France. Now there's our friend, the Compte Le Zignet, for instance. A frown momentarily darkened the cloudless brow of Aristide Pujol. He did not like the Compte de Le Zignet. With Monsieur de Le Zignet he interposed. It is a matter of prejudice, not a principle. And with you, the recent philosophy of a lifetime, Madame Assel answered Aristide. He turned to Mrs. Arrington. How long have you known Monsieur de Le Zignet, Madame? She looked at her daughter. It was in Monte Carlo the winter before last, wasn't it, Betty? Since then we have met him frequently in England and Paris. We came across him just lately at Ruvie. I think he's charming, don't you? He's a great gambler, said Aristide. Betty Arrington laughed again. But so are you. So is Mama. So am I, in my poor little way. We gamble for amusement, said Aristide loftily. I'm sure I don't, cried Miss Betty with merry eyes, and she looked adorable. When I put my despised five frank piece down on the table, I want desperately to win. And when the horrid croupier rakes it up, I want to hit him. Oh, I want to hit him hard. And when you win, I'm afraid I don't think of the croupier at all, said Miss Betty. Her mother smiled indulgently and exchanged a glance with Aristide. This pleased him. There was an agreeable little touch of intimacy in it. It confirmed friendly relations with the mother. What were his designs as regards to the daughter, he did not know. They were not evil, certainly. For all his southern blood, Latin traditions, and devil-made care upbringing, Aristide, though perhaps not reaching our divinely set, and therefore unique English standard of morality, was a decent soul. Further, partly through his pedagogic sojourn among them, and partly through his childish adoration of the Frank fair-cheeked northern goddesses, talking to the quick, clear speech, who passed him by when he was a hunted little devil of a chasseur in the Marseille cafe, he had acquired a peculiarly imaginative reverence for English girls. The reverence indeed extended to English ladies, generally. Owing to the queer circumstances of his life, they were the only women of a class above his own, with whom he had associated on terms of equality. He had then no dishonorable designs as regards Miss Betty Errington. On the other hand, the thoughts of marriage had as yet not entered his head. You see, a Frenchman and an Englishman, or an American, view marriage from entirely different angles. The Anglo-Saxon of honest instincts, attracted towards a pretty girl, at once thinks of the possibilities of marriage. If he finds them infinitely remote, he makes romantic love to her in the solitude of his walks abroad, or of his sleepless nights, and in her presence is as dumb and dismal as a freshly hooked drought. The equally honest girl does nothing of the kind. The attraction in itself is a stimulus to adventure. He makes love to her, just because it is the nature of a lusty son of Adam, to make love to a pretty daughter of Eve. He lives in the present. The rest doesn't matter. He leaves it to chance. I am speaking, be it understood, not of deep passions, that is a different matter altogether, but of the more superficial sexual attractions which we, as a race, take so seriously and puritanically, often to our most disastrous undoing, and which the Latin, lightheartedly, regards as essential, but transient, phenomena of human existence. Aristide made the most respectful love in the world to Betty Arrington, because he could not help himself. To near didier he cried when, from my Britannic point of view, I talked to him on the subject. You English, whom I try to understand and can never understand, are so funny. It would have been insulting to Miss Betty Arrington. Yeah, a purple hyacinth of spring. That was what she was, not to have made love to her. Love to a pretty woman is like a shower of rain to hyacinths. It passes. It goes. Another one comes. Campotta. But the shower is necessary. When will you comprehend? All this, to make as clear as an Englishman, in the confidence of a changeling child of Provence, can hope to do the attitude of Aristide Pujol towards the sweet and innocent Betty Arrington, with her mouth like crumpled rose petals, her ivory and peach blossom complexion, her soft contralto voice, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, as per foregoing bald description, and, as per what can, by imaginative effort, be pictured from the Pujolic hyperbole by which I, the unimportant narrator of these chronicles, was dazzled and overwhelmed. I'm afraid I don't think of the groupier at all, said Betty. Do you think of no one who brings you good fortune, as per Aristide? He threw the matin on the grass, and doubling himself up in his chair regarded her earnestly. Last night you put five louis into my bank. And I won forty. I could have hugged you. Well, why didn't you? His arms spread wide and high. What I have lost. Betty, cried Mrs. Arrington. Alas, madame, said Aristide, that is the despair of our artificial civilization. It prohibits so much spontaneous expression of emotion. You'll forgive me, Monsieur Pujol, said Mrs. Arrington, driving, but I think our artificial civilization has its advantages. If you will forgive me in your turn, said Aristide, I see a doubtful one advancing. A man approached the group, and with profuse gestures, took off a straw hat which he thrust under his right arm, exposing an amazingly flat head, on which the closely cropped hair stood brush-fashioned upright. He had an insignificant pale face, to which a specious individuality was given, by a moustache with ends waxed up to the eyes, and by a monocle with a tortoise-shell rim. He was dressed. His valet had misjudged things, and valets like the rest of us are fallible, in what was yesterday a fairly white flannel soup. Madame, mademoiselle, he shook hands with charming grace. Monsieur, he bowed stiffly. Aristide doffed his Panama hat with adequate ceremony. May I be permitted to join you. With pleasure, Monsieur de Le Cigny, said Mrs. Arrington. Monsieur de Le Cigny brought up a chair and sat down. What time did you get to bed last night, asked Betty Arrington. She spoke excellently pure French, and so did her mother. Soon after we parted, mademoiselle, quite early for me, but late for you. And you looked this morning as if you had gone to bed at sundown, and got up at dawn. Miss Betty's glance, responsive to the compliment, filled Aristide with wrath. What right had the comp de Le Cigny a fellow who consorted with brazilian raster queues and perfumed levantine non-descripts to win such a glance from Betty Arrington. If mademoiselle can look so fresh, said he, in the artificial atmosphere of A, what is there of adorable that she must not resemble in the innocence of her summer-serture home? You cannot imagine it, monsieur, said the Count, but I have had the privilege to see it. I hope monsieur Pujol will visit us also in our country home when we get back, said Mrs. Arrington, with intent to pacificate. It is modest, but it is old world, and has been in our family for hundreds of years. Ah, these old English homes, said Aristide, would you care to hear about it? I should, said he. He drew his chair courteously, a foot or so nearer that of the mild lady. Monsieur de Lucigny took instant advantage of the move to establish himself close to Miss Betty. Aristide turned one ear politely to Mrs. Arrington's discourse, the other ragingly and impotently to the whispered conversation between the detached pair. Presently a novel fell from the lady's lap. Aristide sprang to his feet and restored it. He remained standing. Mrs. Arrington consulted a watch. It was nearing lunchtime. She rose too. Aristide took her, a pace or two aside. My dear Mrs. Arrington, he said in English, I do not wish to be indiscreet, but you come from your quiet home and Somerset, and your beautiful daughter is so young and inexperienced, and I am a man of the world who has mingled in all the society of Europe. May I warn you against admitting the conque de Lucigny too far into your intimacy. She turned an anxious face. Mr. Peugeot, is there anything against the count? Aristide executed the large and expressive shrug of the Southerner. I play high at the tables for my amusement. I know the principal players, people of high standing. Among them a Monsieur de Lucigny's reputation is not spotless. You alarm me very much, said Mrs. Arrington, troubled. I only put you on your guard, said he. The others, who had risen and followed, caught them up. At the entrance to the hotel, the ladies left them in, elaborately saluting. The latter alone looked at each other. Monsieur, Monsieur. Each man raised his hat, turned on his heel, and went his way. Aristide he took himself to the café on the Place Conno, on the side of the square facing the white Éteble Simon de Bach, with a stern sense of having done his duty. It was monstrous that this English damask rose should fall a prey to so detestable a person as the Comte de Lucigny. He suspected him of disgraceful things, if only he had proof. Fortune, ever favouring him, stood at his elbow. She guided him straight to a table in the front row of the terrace, where sat a black haired, hard featured, though comely youth, deep in thought, in front of an untouched glass of beer. At Aristide's approach he raised his head, smiled, nodded, and said, Good morning, sir, will you join me? Aristide graciously accepted the invitation and sat down. The young man was another hotel acquaintance, one Eugene Miller of Atlanta, Georgia, a curious compound of shrewdness and simplicity, to whom Aristide had taken a fancy. He was twenty-eight and ran a colossal boot factory in partnership with another youth, and had a consuming passion for stained glass windows. From books he knew every square foot of old stained glass in Europe, but he had crossed the Atlantic for the first time only six weeks before, and having indulged his craving immoderately, had rested for a span at Echleben to recover from aesthetic indigestion. He had found these amenities agreeable to his ingenuous age. He had also, quite recently, come across a comp de le signe, hence the depth of thought in which Aristide discovered him. Now the fact that north is north and south is south, and that never these twain shall meet, is a proposition all too little considered. One of these days, when I can retire from the dull, but exacting avocation of tea-broking in the city, I think I shall write a newspaper article on the subject. Anyhow, I hold the theory that the northerners of all nations have a common characteristic, and the southerners of all nations have a common characteristic, and that it is this common characteristic in each case that makes north seek and understand north and south seek and understand south. I will not go further into the general proposition, but as a particular instance I will state that the American of the south and the Frenchmen of the south found themselves in essential sympathy. Eugene Miller had the unfaring frankness of Aristide Bougior. I used, rather, to look down upon Europe as a place where people knew nothing at all, said he. We're sort of trained to think it's an extinct volcano, but it isn't. It's alive. My God, it's alive. It's hell in the shape of a Limburger cheese. I wish the whole population of Atlanta, Georgia, would come over and see. There's a lot to be learned. I thought I knew how to take care of myself, but this tortoise-shell-eyed count taught me last night that I couldn't. He cleaned me out of twenty-five hundred dollars. How? asked Aristide Sharply. Aristide brought his hand down with a bang on the table and uttered anathemas in French and Provenceau, entirely unintelligible to Eugene Miller, but the youth knew by instinct that they were useful soul-destroying curses, and he felt comforted. Eccote. You played eccote with Lousigny, but, my dear young friend, do you know anything of eccote? Of course, said Miller. I used to play it as a child with my sisters. Do you know the Gé de l'Aigle? The what? The formal laws of the game. The rules of discards. Never heard of them, said Eugene Miller. But they are as absolute as the Côte Napoleon, cried Aristide. You can't play without knowing them. You might as well play chess without knowing the moves. Can't help it, said the young man. Well, don't play eccote any more. I must, said Miller. Comment? I must. I fixed it up to get my revenge this afternoon in my sitting-room at the hotel. But it's imbecile. The sweep of Aristide's arm produced prismatic chaos among a tray full of drinks, which the waiter was bringing to the family party at the next table. It's imbecile, he cried, as soon as order was apologetically and pecuniarily restored. You are a little mutton going to have this wool taken off. I fixed it up, said Miller. I've never gone back on an engagement yet in my own country, and I'm not going to begin this side. Aristide, he argued. He argued during the mechanical absorption of four glasses of vermouth cassis, after which, prodigious quantity of black current syrup, he rose and took the gathering youth to Nicolas, where he continued the argument during Dejeuner. Eugene Miller's sole concession was that Aristide should be present at the encounter and, backing his hand, should have the power given by the rules of the French game to guide his play. Aristide agreed and crammed his young friend with the jeu de l'aigle and de pâté de foie coie. The count looked rather black when he found Aristide Pujol in Miller's sitting room. He could not, however, refuse him admittance to the game. The three sat down, Aristide, by Miller's side, so that he could overlook the hand and, by pointing, indicate the cards that it was advisable to play. The game began. Fortune favored Mr. Eugene Miller. The count's brow grew blacker. You are bringing your own luck to our friend, Mr. Pujol, said he, dealing the cards. He needs it, said Aristide. Le Roy said the count, turning up the king. The count won the vole, or all five tricks, and swept the stakes towards him. Then, fortune quickly and firmly deserted Mr. Miller. The count, besides being an amazingly fine player, held amazingly fine cards. The pile of folded notes in front of him rose higher and higher. Aristide tugged at his beard in agitation. Suddenly, as the count dealt a king as prompt card, he sprang to his feet, knocking over the chair behind him. You cheat, monsieur, you cheat! Monsieur, cried the outraged dealer. What has he done? He has been palming kings and neutralizing the card. I've been watching. Now I catch him, cried Aristide, in great excitement. Monsieur, c'est le comte de le signer, with dignity, stuffing his winnings into his jacket pocket. You insult me. It is an infamy. Two of my friends will call upon you. And Mr. Miller and I will kick them over, mon rabade. You cannot treat Jean Donner in such a way, monsieur. He turned to Miller and said heartily in his imperfect English. Did you see the cheat, you? I can't say that I did, replied the young man. On the other hand, that torchlight procession of kings doesn't seem exactly natural. But you did not see anything? Bon. But I saw. Isn't that enough, here? Shouted Aristide, brandishing his fingers in the count's face. You come here and think there's nothing easier than to cheat young foreigners who don't know the rules of the couture. You come here and think you can carry off rich young English misses? You never thought you would have to reckon with Aristide Peugeot. You call yourself le comte de le signer. But I know you. He didn't. But that doesn't matter. Your dossier is in the hands of the prefect of police. I'm going to get that dossier. Monsieur Le Pen is my intimate friend. Every autumn we shoot together. Bah, you send me your two galleybirds and see what I do to them. The comte de le signer twirl the tips of his moustache almost to his forehead and caught up his hat. My friends shall be officers in the uniform of the French army, he said, to buy the door. And mine shall be to Jean Bomb, retorted Aristide. No, did ya, he cried. After the other had left the room, we let him take the money. That's of no consequence. He didn't get away with much anyway, said young Miller. But he would have if you hadn't been here. If ever I can do you a return service, just ask. Aristide went out to look for the Arringtons. But they were not to be found. It was only late in the afternoon that he met Mrs. Arrington in the hall of the hotel. He dragged her into a corner, and in his impulsive fashion told her everything. She listened, white-faced, in great distress. My daughters engaged to him. I've only just learned, she faltered. Engaged? Sucker, bleh! Ah, le jouca! For the second he was desperately, furiously, jealously in love with Betty Arrington. Ah, le salta! Voyant! This engagement must be broken off at once. You are her mother. She will hear of nothing against him. You will tell her this. It will be a blow. But Mrs. Arrington twisted a handkerchief between helpless fingers. Betty is infatuated. She won't believe it. She regarded him piteously. Oh, Monsieur Peugeot, what can I do? You see, she has an independent fortune and is over twenty-one. I am powerless. I will meet his two friends, exclaimed Arrestidi magnificently, and I will kill him. Voila! Ah, du! No! How awful! cried the mild lady, horror-stricken. He thrust his cane dramatically through a sheet of a newspaper, which he had caught up from a table. I will run him through the body like that. Arrestidi had never handled a foil in his life. And when he is dead, your beautiful daughter will thank me for having saved her from such an execrable fellow. But you mustn't fight. It would be too dreadful. Is there no other way? You must consult first with your daughter, said Arrestidi. He dined in the hotel with Eugene Miller. Neither the Arringtons nor the Condalousigny were anywhere to be seen. After dinner, however, he found the elder lady waiting for him in the hall. They walked out into the quiet of the garden. She had been too upset to dine, she explained, having had a terrible scene with Betty. Nothing but absolute proofs of her lover's iniquity would satisfy her. The world was full of slanderous tongues. The noblest and the purest did not escape. For herself, she had never been comfortable with the Condalousigny. She had noticed, too, that he had always avoided the best French people in hotels. She would give anything to save her daughter. She wept. And the unhappy girl has written him compromising letters, she lamented. They must be got back. But how, oh, M. Peugeot, do you think he would take money for them? A scoundrel like that would take money for his dead mother's shroud, said Arrestidi. A thousand pounds? She looked very haggard and helpless beneath the blue arc lights. Arrestidi's heart went out to her. He knew her type, the sweet gentlewoman of rural England, who comes abroad to give her pretty daughter a sight of life, ingenuously confident that foreign watering-places are as innocent as her own sequestered village. That is much money, Chez Madame, said Arrestidi. Mine, fairly well off, said Mrs. Arrington. Arrestidi reflected. At the offer of a smaller sum, the Count would possibly bluff. But to a night of industry, as he knew the Count to be, a certain thousand pounds would be a great temptation. And after all, to a wealthy Englishwoman, what was a thousand pounds? Madame, said he, if you offer him a thousand pounds for the letters, and a written confession that he is not the Compte de Lusigny, but a common adventurer, I stake my reputation that he will accept. They walked along for a few moments in silence. The opera had begun at the adjoining Ville des Fleurs, and the strains floated through the still August air. After a while she halted and laid her hand on his sleeve. Monsieur Pujol, I have never been faced with such a thing before. Will you undertake for me this delicate and difficult business? Madame, said he, my life is at the service of yourself and your most exquisite daughter. She pressed his hand. Thank God, I've got a friend in this dreadful place. She said, brokenly, let me go in. And when they reached the lounge, she said, wait for me here. She entered the lift. Aristide waited. Presently the lift descended and she emerged with a slip of paper in her hand. Here is a bearer check, Monsieur Pujol, for a thousand pounds. Get the letters and the confession, if you can, and a mother's blessing will go with you. She left him and went upstairs, again in the lift. Aristide, a thirst with love, living drama, and unholy hatred of the Compe de Lysigny, cocked his black, soft felt evening hat at an engaging angle on his head, and swaggered into the Ville des Fleurs. As he passed the plebeian crowd round the Petit Chavaux table, these were the days of little horses, and not the modern equivalent of la boule, he threw a louis on the square mark five, and waited for the groupier to push him his winnings. Seven louis and his stake on the little white horse, and walked into the baccarat room. A bank was being called for 30 louis at the end table. Quarante, said Aristide. A juger a quarante louis, cried the groupier, and no one bidding higher. Aristide took the banker's seat and put down his 40 louis. Looking round the long table, he saw the Compe de Lysigny sitting in the punt. The two men glared at each other defiantly. Someone went banco, Aristide won. The fact of his holding the bank attracted a crowd round the table. The regular game began. Aristide won, lost, won again. Now it must be explained, without going into the details of the game, that the hand against the bank is played by the members of the punt in turn. Suddenly, before dealing the cards, Aristide asked, A kilement. C'est à mes yeux, said the groupier, indicating Lucigny. Il y a une suite, said Aristide, signifying, as was his right, that he would retire from the bank with his winnings. The face of that gentleman does not please me. There was a hush at the humming table. The count grew dead white and looked at its fingernails. Aristide superbly gathered up his notes in gold, and tossing a couple of louis to the groupier, left the table followed by all eyes. It was one of the thrilling moments of Aristide's life. He had taken the stage, commanded the situation. He had publicly offered the Compe de Lysigny the most deadly insult, and the Compe de Lysigny sat down beneath it like a lamb. He swaggered slowly through the crowded room, twirling his moustache, and went into the cool of the moonlit, deserted garden beyond, where he waited gleefully. He had a puckish knowledge of human nature. After a decent interval, and during the absorbing interest of the newly constituted bank, the Compe de Lysigny slipped unnoticed from the table, and went in search of Aristide. He found him smoking a large corona, and lounging in one wicker chair with his feet in another. Beside a very large whiskey and soda. Ah, it's you, said he, without moving. Yes, said the Count furiously. I haven't yet had the pleasure of kicking your friends over Mont-Rivard, said Aristide. Look here, mon petit, this has got to finish, cried the Count. Parfaitement. I should like nothing better than to finish, but let us finish like well-bred to people, said Aristide Swavly. We don't want the whole casino as witnesses. You'll find a chair over there. Bring it up. He was enjoying himself immensely. The Count glared at him, turned and banged a chair over by the side of the table. Why do you insult me like this? Because, said Aristide, I've talked by telephone this evening with my good friend, Monsieur Le Pen, Prefect of Police of Paris. You lie, said the Count. Au revoir, in the meantime. Perhaps we might have a little conversation. Will you have a whisky and soda? It is one of my English habits. No, said the Count emphatically. You permit me, then? He drank a great draught. You are wrong. It helps to cool one's temper. Happy, and let us talk. He talked. He put before the Count the situation of the beautiful Ms. Arrington. He conducted the scene, like the friend of the family, whose astuteness he had admired as a boy in the melodramas that found their way to Marseille. Look, said he, at last, having vainly offered, from one hundred to eight hundred pounds, for poor Betty Arrington's compromising letters. Look! He drew the cheque from his note case. Here are twenty-five thousand francs. The signature is that of the charming madame Arrington herself. The letters, and a little signed word, just a little word. Mademoiselle, I am a chevalier d'andestie. I have a wife and five children. I am not worthy of you. I give you back your promise. Just that, and twenty-five thousand francs, mon ami. Never in life exclaimed the Count Rising. You continue to insult me. Aristide, for the first time, abandoned his lazy and insolent attitude, and jumped to his feet. And I'll continue to insult you, Canaia, that you are, all through that room, he cried, with a swift flung gesture towards the brilliant doorway. You are dealing with Aristide Pujol. Will you never understand the letters in a confession for twenty-five thousand francs? Never in life said the Count, and he moved swiftly away. Aristide caught him by the collar, as he stood on the covered terrace, a foot or two from the threshold of the gaming room. I swear to you, I'll make a scandal that you won't survive. The Count stopped and pushed Aristide's hand away. I admit nothing, said he, but you are a gambler, and so am I. I will play you for those documents again twenty-five thousand francs. Said Aristide, staggered for the moment. The Count de Lesigny repeated the proposition. Bon, said Aristide, très bon. C'est entendu. C'est fait. If Beelzebub had arisen and offered to play beggar my neighbor for his soul, Aristide would have agreed, especially after the large whisky and soda, and the mom au cordon rouge, and the Napoleon brandy, which Eugene Miller had insisted on his drinking at dinner. I have a large room at the hotel, said he. I will join you, said the Count. Monsieur, he took off his hat very politely. Go first. I will be there in three minutes. Aristide drawed on air during the two minutes walk to the Hotel de l'Europe. At the bureau he ordered a couple of packs of cards and a supply of drinks, and went to his palatial room on the ground floor. In a few moments the Count de Lesigny appeared. Aristide offered him a two franc corona, which was ceremoniously accepted. Then he tore the wrapping off one of the packs of cards and shuffled. Monsieur, said he, still shuffling. I should like to deal two hands at a cote. It signifies nothing. It is an experiment. Will you cut? Montier, said the Count. Aristide took up the pack, dealt three cards to the Count, three cards to himself, two cards to the Count, two to himself, and turned up the King of Hearts as the eleventh card. Monsieur, said he, expose your hand, and I will expose mine. Both men, through their hands, face up or most on the table. Aristides was full of trumps, the counts of valueless cards. He looked at his adversary with his roguish triumphant smile. The Count looked at him darkly. The ordinary card player does not know how to deal like that, he said, with sinister significance. But I am not ordinary in anything, my dear Sir, laughed Aristide, in his large boastfulness. If I were, do you think I would have agreed to your absurd proposal? Valuel, I only wanted to show you that in dealing cards I am your equal. Now, the letters, the Count threw a small packet on the table. You will permit me? I do not wish to read them. I verify only. Oh, good, said he, and the confession. What you like, said the Count coldly. Aristides scribbled a few lines that would have been devastating to the character of a Hercanian tiger and handed the paper and fountain pen to the Count. Will you sign? The Count glanced at the words and signed. Voila, said Aristide, laying Mrs. Arrington's check beside the documents. Now, let us play the best of three games. Good, said the Count, but you will excuse me, Mr. Sure, if I claim to play for ready money. The check will take five days to negotiate, and if I lose, I shall evidently have to leave it tomorrow morning. That's reasonable, said Aristide. He drew out his fat note case and counted 25 1,000 Frank notes onto the table, and then began the most exciting game of cards he had ever played. In the first place he was playing with another person's money for a fantastic stake of girls' honor and happiness. Secondly, he was pitted against a master of ecarte, and thirdly, he knew that his adversary would cheat if he could, and that his adversary suspected him of fraudulent designs. So, as they played, each man craned his head forward and looked at the other man's fingers with fierce intensity. Aristide lost the first game. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. In the second game, he won the vol in one hand. The third and the final game began. They played slowly, carefully, with keen, quick eyes. Their breathing came hard. The Count's lips, parted beneath his up-twisted moustache, showed his teeth like a cat's. Aristide lost sense of all outer things in the thrill of the encounter. They snarled the stereotyped phrases necessary for the conduct of the game. At last the points stood at four for Aristide, and three for his adversary. It was Aristide's deal. Before turning up the eleventh card, he paused for the fraction of a second. If it was the king, he had won. He flicked it neatly face upward. It was not the king. Jean Donner, non le rye. The Count played and marked the king. Aristide had no trumps. The game was lost. He sat back quite while the Count, smiling, gathered up the bank notes. And now, M. Pujol, said he impidentally, I am willing to sell you this rubbish for the check. Aristide jumped to his feet. Never, he cried. Madness seized him, regardless of the fact that he had nothing like another thousand pounds left were with due repay, Mrs. Arrington, if he lost. He shouted, I will play again for it, not a carte, one cut of the card's, ace, lowest. All right, said the Count, begin you. Aristide watched his hand like cat as he cut. He cut at eight. Aristide gave a little gasp of joy and cut quickly. He held up a nave and laughed aloud. Then he stopped short as he saw the Count about two pounds on the documents and the check. He made a swift movement and grabbed them first, the other man's hand on his, canaia. He dashed his free hand into the adventurer's face. The man staggered back. Aristide pocketed the precious papers. The Count scowled at him for an undecided second, and then bolted from the room. Bleh! said Aristide, sinking into his chair and wiping his face. That was a narrow escape. He looked at his watch. It was only ten o'clock. It had seemed as if his game with Luzigny had lasted for hours. He could not go to bed and stood confronted with anti-climax. After a while he went in search of Eugene Miller, and having found him in solitary meditation on stained glass windows in the dimlet grounds of the Villa, sat down by his side, and for the rest of the evening poured his peculiar knowledge of Europe into the listening ear of the young man from Atlanta. On the following morning, as soon as he was dressed, he learned from the concierge that the Count de Luzigny had left for Paris by the early train. Good! said Aristide. A little later Mrs. Arrington met him in the lounge and accompanied him to the lawn where they had sat the day before. I have no words to thank you, Mr. Pujol. She said, with tears in her eyes, I have heard how you shamed him at the tables. It was brave of you. Oh, it was nothing. He shrugged his shoulders as if he were in the habit of doing deeds like that every day of his life. And your exquisite daughter, Madame. Poor Betty! She is prostrate. She says she will never hold up her head again. Her heart is broken. It is young and will be mended, said Aristide. She smiles sadly. It will be a question of time. But she is grateful to you, Mr. Pujol. She realizes from what a terrible fate you have saved her. She sighed. There was a brief silence. After this she continued. A further stay at Ed would be too painful. We have decided to take the Savoy Express this evening and get back to our quiet home in Somerset. Ah, madame, said Aristide earnestly. And shall I not have the pleasure of seeing the charming Miss Betty again? You will come and stay with us in September. Let me see the fifteenth. Why not fix a date? You have my address? No? Would you write it down? She dictated. Rotsley Manor, burn home, Somerset. There I'll try to show you how grateful I am. She extended her hand. He bowed over it and kissed it in his French way and departed a very happy man. The Arringtons left that evening. Aristide waylaid them as they were entering the Hotel Omnibus with a preposterous bouquet of flowers which he presented to Betty, whose pretty face was hidden by a motor veil. He bowed, laid his hand on his heart and said, Adieu mademoiselle. No, she said in a low voice but most graciously, Au revoir, Monsieur Bougior. For the next few days a seemed to be tame and cutlerless in an inexplicable fashion too it had become unprofitable. Aristide no longer knew that he was going to win and he did not win. He lost considerably so much so that on the morning when he was to draw the cash for the check at the Crédit Lyonnais, he had only fifty pounds and some odd silver left. Aristide, looking at the remainder rather roofily, made a great resolution. He would gamble no more. Already he was richer than he had ever been in his life. He would leave eh, tiens! Why should he not go to his good friends, the Bougartons and Nîmes, bringing with him a gold chain for Bougartons and a pair of earrings for the adorable Zet? There he would look about him. He would use the thousand pounds as a stepping stone to legitimate fortune. Then he would visit the Arringtons in England and if the beautiful Miss Betty smiled on him, why, after all, Sacaplère, he was an honest man without a feather on his conscience. So, jauntily swinging his cane, he marched into the office of the Crédit Lyonnais, went into the inner room and explained his business, ah, your check-missure that we were to collect, I am sorry it has come back from the London bankers. How come back? It has not been honoured, see-missure? Not known, no account. The cashier pointed to the grim words across the check. Comprend pas, faltered Aristide, it means that the person who gave you the check has no account at this bank. Aristide took the check and looked at it in a dazed way. Then I do not get my twenty-five thousand francs? Evidently not, said the cashier. Aristide stood for a while stunned. What did it mean? His thousand pounds could not be lost. It was impossible. There was some mistake. It was an evil dream. With a heavy weight on the top of his head, he went out of the Crédit Lyonnais and mechanically crossed the little street, separating the bank from the café on the Place Canot. There he sat stupidly and wondered. The waiter hovered in front of him. Monsieur Désir? Aristide waved him away absently. Yes, it was some mistake. Mrs. Arrington, in her agitation, must have used the wrong checkbook. But even rich English people do not carry about with them a circulating library assortment of checkbooks. It was incomprehensible. And, meanwhile, his thousand pounds. The little square blazed before him in the August sunshine. Opposite flashed the white mass of the Étéblishement d'Iba. There was the Old Roman Arch of Titus, gray and venerable. There were the trees of the gardens and riotous greenery. There, on the right, marking the hour of eleven on its black face, was the clock of the Comptois-Nacinale. It was a familiar é, not a land of dreams. And there, coming rapidly across from the Comptois-Nacinale, was the well-knit figure of the young man from Atlanta. Nôme de Dieu, murmur d'Arastide. Nôme de Dieu, de Nôme de Dieu. Eugene Miller, in a fine frenzy, threw himself into a chair beside Arastide. See here, can you understand this? He thrust into his hand a pink strip of paper. It was a check for a hundred pounds, made payable to Eugene Miller, Esquire, signed by Mary Arrington, and marked, Not Known, No Account. Nôme de Dieu, cried Arastide. How did you get this? How did I get it? I cashed it for her, the day she went away. She said urgent affairs summoned her from A. No time to wire for funds. Wanted to pay her hotel bill. And she gave me the address of her old English home in Somerset, and invited me to come there in September. Fifteenth of September said that you were coming, and now I've got a bum check. I guess I can't wander about this country alone. I need blinkers and harness and a man with a whip. He went on indignantly. Arastide composed his face into an expression of parental interest, but within him there was shivering and sickening of evil. He saw it all, the whole mocking drama. He, Arastide Pujol, was the most sweetly, the most completely swindled man in France. The Comte de Lusigny, the mild Mrs. Arrington, and the beautiful Betty were in league together and had exquisitely plotted. They had conspired as soon as he had accused the Count of cheating. The rascal must have gone straight to them from Miller's room. No wonder that Lusigny, when insulted at the tables, had sat like a tame rabbit and had sought him in the garden. No wonder he had accepted the accusation of adventurer. No wonder he had refused to play for the check which he knew to be valueless. But why, thought Arastide, did he not at once consent to sell the papers on the stipulation that he should be paid in notes? Arastide found an answer. He wanted to get everything for nothing, afraid of the use that Arastide might make of a damning confession and also relying for success on his manipulation of the cards. Finally he had desire to get hold of a dangerous check. In that he had been foiled, but the trio has got away with his thousand pounds, his wonderful thousand pounds. He reflected, still keeping an attentive eye on young Eugene Miller and interjecting a sympathetic word that after he had paid his hotel bill he would be as poor on quitting a Le Pen as he was when he had entered it. Seek transit, as it was in the beginning, with Arastide Pujol is now and never shall be. But I have my clothes, such clothes as I've never had in my life, thought Arastide and a diamond and sapphire type in. And a gold watch and all sorts of other things. Prantler, I'm still rich. Who would have thought she was like that, said he, and a hundred pounds too. A lot of money. For nothing in the world would he have confessed himself a fellow victim. I don't care a cent for the hundred pounds, cried the young man. Our factory turns out seven hundred and sixty seven million pairs of boots per annum. Arastide, not I, is responsible for the statistics. But I have a feeling that in this ory country I'm just a little toddling child, and I hate it. I do, sir. I want a nurse to take me round. Arastide flashed the lightning of his wit upon the young man from Atlanta, Georgia. You do, my dear young friend. I'll be your nurse at a weekly salary. Say a hundred francs. It doesn't matter. We will not quarrel. Eugene Miller was startled. Yes, said Arastide with a convincing flourish. I'll clear robbers and sirens and harpies from your path. I'll show you things in Europe. From Tremso to Capps but Avento that you never dreamed of. I'll lead you to every stained glass window in the world. I know them all. I particularly want to see those in the Church of St. Sebold in Nuremberg. I know them like my pocket, said Arastide. I will take you there. We start today. But Mr. Pugio, said the somewhat bewildered Georgian, I thought you were a man of fortune. I am more than a man. I am a soldier. I am a soldier of fortune. The fickle goddess has for the moment deserted me. But I am loyal. I have for all worldly goods two hundred and fifty dollars, with which I shall honorably pay my hotel bill. I say I am a soldier of fortune. But he slapped his chest. I am the only honorable one on the continent of Europe. The young man fixed upon him the hard blue eyes, not of the enthusiast for stained glass windows, but of the senior partner in the boot factory of Atlanta, Georgia. I believe you, said he. It's a deal. Shake. And now, said Arastide, after having shaken hands, come and lunch with me at Nicolaus for the last time. Heroes stretched out both arms in a wide gesture and smiled with his irresistible ancient mariner's eyes at the young man. We lunch. We eat ambrosia. Then we go out together and see the wonderful world through the glass blood of saints and martyrs and apostles and the good Father Abraham and Louis Catois. Vien mon cher ami. It is the dream of my life. Practically penniless and absolutely disillusioned, the amazing man was radiantly happy.