Smith sauntered out to the terrace, looked at the sky, sniffed the roses, and sat down in the shadow of a cherry tree, cocking his feet up and resting his novel on his knees. Several hours later, aroused by the mellow clash of harness and noise of wheels, he looked out over the terrace wall just in time to catch a glimpse of the victoria of his neighbour, gold and green livery, strawberry roans, flashing wheels and all; and quite alone under her brilliant sunshade, the dark-haired girl whom Kingsbury had decided to marry as soon as he could arrange to fall in love with her.

"I fancy she's the Countess, all right," mused Smith; "but, to me, the girl with red hair is vastly – more – more alluring – "

The sound of wheels again broke the thread of his sleepy meditation; their dog-cart was at the gate; and presently he perceived Kingsbury, hatted and gloved to perfection, get in, take the reins from the coachman, loop his whip, assume the posture popularly attributed to pupils of Howlett, and go whirling away through the lazy sunshine of a perfect Belgian afternoon.

"The beast has lunched without me," muttered Smith, yawning and looking at his watch. Then he got up, stretched, tinkled the bell, and when the doll-faced maid arrived, requested an omelet à la Semois and a bottle of claret.

He got it in due time, absorbed it lazily, casting a weatherwise eye on the sky at intervals with a view to afternoon fishing; but the sun was too bright; besides, his book had become interesting in a somewhat maudlin fashion, inasmuch as the lovers must come to a clinch in the next chapter or not at all.

"You can't tell in modern novels," he muttered; "a girl has a way of side-stepping just as the bell rings: but the main guy ought to make good within the next page or two. If he doesn't he's a dub!"

With which comment he sought his hammock for an hour's needed repose; but he had slumbered longer than that when he found himself sitting bolt upright, the telephone bell ringing in his ears.

Comfortably awake now, he slid from the hammock, and, entering the house, stepped into the smoking-room.

"Hello!" he said, unhooking the receiver.

Kingsbury's voice replied: "I'm here in Semois-les-Bains, at the charity bazar. Can you distinguish what I say?"

"Perfectly, my Romeo! Proceed."

"I'm in a fix. Our Ambassador didn't come, and I don't know anybody to take me over and present me."

"Buy a doll, idiot!"

"Confound it, I've already bought ten! That doesn't give me the privilege of doing anything but buying ten more. She's busy; about five million people are crowding around her."

"Buy every doll she has! Put her out of business, man! Then if you can't fix it somehow you're a cuckoo. Is the Countess the dark-haired girl?"

"Certainly."

"How do you know?"

"Isn't she here selling dolls? Didn't the paper say she was going to?"

"Yes – but hadn't you better find out for certain before you – "

"I am certain; anyway, I don't care. Smith, she is the most radiantly – "

"All right; ring off – "

"Wait! I wanted to tell you that she has the prettiest way of smiling every time I buy a doll. And then, while she wraps up the infernal thing in ribbons and tissue we chat a little. I'd like to murder our Ambassador! Do you think that if I bought her entire stock – "

"Yes, I do!"

"What do you think?"

"What you do."

"But I don't think anything at all. I am asking you – "

"Try it, anyhow."

"All right. Hold the wire, Smith. I'll report progress – "

"What! Stand here and wait – "

"Don't be selfish. I'll return in a moment."

The "moment" stretched into a buzzing, crackling half hour, punctuated by impatient inquiries from Central. Suddenly an excited: "Hello, Smith!"

"Hello, you infernal – "

"I've done it! I've bought every doll! She's the sweetest thing; I told her I had a plan for endowing a ward in any old hospital she might name, and she thinks we ought to talk it over, so I'm going to sit out on the terrace with her – Smith!"

"What?"

"Oh, I thought you'd gone! I only wanted to say that she is far, far lovelier than I had supposed. I can't wait here talking with you any longer. Good-by!"

"Is she the Countess?" shouted Smith incredulously. But Kingsbury had rung off.

CHAPTER XXIII
ON THE WALL

Smith retired to his room to bathe, clothed himself in snowy linen and fresh tennis flannels, and descended again, book under his arm, to saunter forth through heavy tangles of cinnamon-tinted Flemish roses and great sweet-scented peonies, musing on love and fate.

"Kingsbury and his theories! The Countess of Semois will think him crazy. She'll think us both crazy! And I am not sure that we're not; youth is madness; half the world is lunatic! Take me, for example; I never did a more unexpected thing than kissing that shadow across the wall. I don't know why, I don't know how, but I did it; and I am out of jail yet. Certainly it must have been the cook. Oh, Heavens! If cooks kiss that way, what, what must the indiscretion of a Countess resemble?.. She did kiss back… At least there was a soft, tremulous, perfumed flutter – a hint of delicate counter-pressure – "

But he had arrived at the wall by that time.

"How like a woodland paradise!" he murmured sentimentally, youthful face upraised to the trees. "How sweet the zephyr! How softly sing the dicky-birds! I wonder – I wonder – " But what it was that perplexed him he did not say; he stood eying the top of the wall as the furtive turkey eyes its selected roost before coyly hopping thither.

"What's the use? If I see her I'll only take fright and skulk homeward. Why do I return again and again to the scene of guilt? Is it Countess or cook that draws me, or some one less exalted in the culinary confine? Why, why should love get busy with me? Is this the price I pay for that guileless kiss? Am I to be forever 'it' in love's gay game of tag?"

He ascended the steplike niche in the wall, peeped fearfully over into his neighbour's chasse. Tree and tangle slept in the golden light of afternoon; a cock-pheasant strutted out of a thicket, surveyed the solitude with brilliant eyes, and strutted back again; a baby rabbit frisked across the carrefour into the ferny warren beyond; and "Bubble, bubble, flowed the stream, like an old song through a dream."

Sprawling there flat on top of the sun-warmed stucco wall, white sunlight barring the pages of his book, he lifted his head to listen. There was a leafy stirring somewhere, perhaps the pheasant rustling in the underbrush. The sing-song of the stream threaded the silence; and as he listened it seemed to grow louder, filling the woods with low, harmonious sounds. In the shallows he heard laughter; in the pouring waterfalls, echoes like wind-blown voices calling. Small grey and saffron tinted birds, passing from twig to twig, peered at him fearlessly; a heavy green lizard vanished between the stones with an iridescent wriggle. Suddenly a branch snapped and the underbrush crackled.

"Probably a deer," thought Smith, turning to look. Close inspection of the thicket revealed nothing; he dropped his chin on his hands, crossed his legs, and opened his book.

The book was about one of those Americans who trouble the peace of mind of Princesses; and this was the place to read it, here in the enchanted stillness of the ancient Belgian forest, here where the sunshine spread its net on fretted waters, where lost pools glimmered with azure when the breeze stirred overhead – here where his neighbor was a Countess and some one in her household wore a mass of gold-red hair Greek fashion – and Aphrodite was not whiter of neck nor bluer eyed than she.

The romance that he read was designed to be thickly satisfying to American readers, for it described a typical American so accurately that Smith did not recognize the type. Until he had been enlightened by fiction he never imagined Americans were so attractive to exotic nobility. So he read on, gratified, cloyed, wondering how the Princess, although she happened to be encumbered with a husband, could stand for anything but ultimate surrender to the Stars and Stripes; and trustfully leaving it to another to see that it was done morally.

Hypnotized by the approaching crisis, he had begun already to finger the next page, when a slight crash in the bushes close by and the swish of parting foliage startled him from romance to reality.

But he had looked up too late; to slink away was impossible; to move was to reveal himself. It was she! And she was not ten feet distant.

One thing was certain: whether or not she was the shadowy partner of his kiss, she could not be the Countess, because she was fishing, unattended, hatless, the sleeves of her shirtwaist rolled up above her white elbows, a book and a short landing-net tucked under her left arm. Countesses don't go fishing unattended; gillies carry things. Besides, the Countess of Semois was in Semois-les-Bains selling dolls to Kingsbury.

The sun glowed on her splendid red hair; she switched the slender rod about rather awkwardly, and every time the cast of flies became entangled in a nodding willow she set her red lips tight and with an impatient "Mais, c'est trop bête! Mais, c'est vraiment trop– "

It was evident that she had not seen him where he lay on the wall; the chances were she would pass on – indeed her back was already toward him – when the unexpected happened: a trout leaped for a gnat and fell back into the pool with a resounding splash, sending ring on ring of sunny wavelets toward the shore.

"Ah! Te voilà!" she said aloud, swinging her line free for a cast.

Smith saw what was coming and tried to dodge, but the silk line whistled on the back-cast, and the next moment his cap was snatched from his head and deposited some twenty feet out in the centre of the pool.

The amazement of the fair angler was equal to his own as she looked hastily back over her shoulder and discovered him on the wall.

There is usually something undignified about a man whose hat has been knocked off; to laugh is as fatal as to show irritation; and Smith did neither, but quietly dropped over to her side of the wall, saying, "I'm awfully sorry I spoiled your cast. Don't mind the cap; that trout was a big one, and he may rise again."

He had spoken in English, and she answered in very pretty English: "I am so sorry – could I help you to recover your hat?"

"Thank you; if you would let me take your rod a moment."

"Willingly, monsieur."

She handed him the rod; he loosened the line, measured the distance with practiced eye, turned to look behind him, and, seeing there was scant room for a long back-cast, began sending loop after loop of silken line forward across the water, using the Spey method, of which none except an expert is master.

The first cast struck half-way, but in line; the next, still in line, slipped over the cap, but failed to hook. Then, as he recovered, there was a boiling rush in the water, a flash of pink and silver, and the rod staggered.

"I – I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed aghast; "I have hooked your trout!"

"Play him," she said quickly. The elfin shriek of the reel answered; he gave the fish every ounce the quivering rod could spare, the great trout surged deeply, swerved, circled and bored slowly upstream.

"This fish is magnificent," said Smith, guiltily. "You really must take the rod – "

"I shall not, indeed."

"But this is not fair!"

"It is perfectly fair, monsieur – and a wonderful lesson in angling to me. Oh, I beg you to be careful! There is a sunken tree limb beyond!"

Her cheeks were the colour of wild roses, her blue eyes burned like stars.

"He's down; I can't stir him," said Smith. "He's down like a salmon!"

She linked her hands behind her back. "What is to be done?" she asked calmly.

"If you would gather a handful of those pebbles and throw one at a time into the pool where he is lying – "

Before he finished speaking she had knelt, filled her palms with golden gravel, and stood ready at the water's edge.

"Now?" she nodded, inquiringly.

"Yes, one at a time; try to hit him."

The first pebble produced no effect; neither did the second, nor yet the third.

"Throw a handful at him," he suggested, and braced himself for the result. A spray of gravel fell; the great fish sulked motionless.

"There's a way – " began Smith, feeling in his pockets for his key-ring. It was not there.

"Could I be of any use?" she asked, looking up at Smith very guilelessly.

"Why, if I had something – a key-ring or anything that I could hang over the taut line – something that would slide down and jog him gently – "

"A hairpin?" she asked.

"I'm afraid it's too light."

She reflected a moment; her bent forefinger brushed her velvet lips. Then she began to unfasten a long gold pin at her throat.

"Oh, not that!" exclaimed Smith, anxiously. "It might slip off."

"It can't; there's a safety clasp. Anyway, we must have that trout!"

"But I could not permit – "

"It is I who permit myself, monsieur."

"No, no, it is too generous of you – "

"Please!" She held the pin toward him; he shook his head; she hesitated, then with a quick movement she snapped the clasp over the taut line and sent it spinning toward the invisible fish.

He saw the gold glimmer become a spark under water, die out in dusky depths; then came a rushing upheaval of spray, a flash, the rod quivered to the reel-plate, and the fight began in fury. The rod was so slim, so light – scarce three ounces – that he could but stand on the defensive at first. Little by little the struggle became give and take, then imperceptibly he forced the issue, steadily, delicately, for the tackle was gossamer, and he fought for the safety of the golden clasp as well as for his honour as an angler.

"Do you know how to net a trout?" he asked presently. She came and stood at his shoulder, net poised, blue eyes intent upon the circling fish.

"I place it behind him, do I not?" she asked coolly.

"Yes – when I give the word – "

One more swerve, a half circle sheering homeward, nearer, nearer —

A moment later the huge trout lay on the moss; iridescent tints played over its broad surface, shimmering hues deepened, waxing, warning; the spots glowed like rubies set in bronze.

Kneeling there, left hand resting on the rod, Smith looked up at her over his shoulder; but all she said was: "Ah, the poor, brave thing! The gallant fish! This is wrong – all wrong. I wish we had not taken a life we cannot give again."

"Shall I put the trout back madame?"

She looked at him surprised.

"Would you?" she asked incredulously.

"If you desire it."

"But it is your fish."

"It is yours, madame."

"Will it live? Oh, try to make it live!"

He lifted the beautiful fish in both hands, and, walking to the water's edge, laid it in the stream. For a while it floated there, gold and silver belly turned to the sky, gills slowly inflating and collapsing. Presently a fin stirred; the spasmodic movement of the gill-covers ceased, and the breathing grew quiet and steady. Smith touched the pectoral fins; the fish strove to turn over; he steadied the dorsal fin, then the caudal, righting the fish. Slowly, very slowly, the great trout moved off, farther, farther, sinking into cool, refreshing depths; there was a dull glitter under the water, a shadow gliding, then nothing except the green obscurity of the pool criss-crossed with surface sunshine.

When Smith turned around the girl was pensively regarding the water. His cap had stranded on a shoal almost at his feet; he recovered it, wrung the drops from it, and stood twirling it thoughtfully in the sunlight.

"I've ruined it, haven't I?" she asked.

"Oh, no; it's a shooting-cap. Like Tartarin, I shall probably ventilate it later in true Midi fashion."

She laughed; then, with the flushed composure of uneasiness: "Thank you for a lesson in angling. I have learned a great deal – enough at least to know that I shall not care to destroy life, even in a fish."

"That is as it should be," he replied coolly. "Men find little charm in women who kill."

"That is scarcely in accord with the English novels I read – and I read many," she said laughing.

"It is true, nevertheless. Saint Hubert save us from the woman who can watch the spark of life fade out in the eye of any living thing."

"Are you not a little eccentric, monsieur?"

"If you say so. Eccentricity is the full-blown blossom of mediocrity."

CHAPTER XXIV
A JOURNEY TO THE MOON

There was a silence so politely indifferent on her part that he felt it to be the signal for his dismissal. And he took his leave with a formality so attractive, and a good humour so informal, that before she meant to she had spoken again – a phrase politely meaningless in itself, yet – if he chose to take it so – acting as a stay of execution.

"I was wondering," he said, amiably, "how I was going to climb back over the wall."

A sudden caprice tinged with malice dawned in the most guileless of smiles as she raised her eyes to his:

"You forgot your ladder this time, didn't you?"

Would he ever stop getting redder? His ears were afire, and felt enormous.

"I am afraid you misunderstood me," she said, and her smile became pitilessly sweet. "I am quite sure a distinguished foreign angler could scarcely condescend to notice trespass signs in a half-ruined old park – "

His crimson distress softened her, perhaps, for she hesitated, then added impulsively: "I did not mean it, monsieur; I have gone too far – "

"No, you have not gone too far," he said. "I've disgraced myself and deserve no mercy."

"You are mistaken; the trout may have come from your side of the wall – "

"It did, but that is a miserable excuse. Nothing can palliate my conduct. It's a curious thing," he added, bitterly, "that a fellow who is decent enough at home immediately begins to do things in Europe."

"What things, monsieur?"

"Ill-bred things; I might as well say it. Theoretically, poaching is romantic; practically, it's a misdemeanor – the old conflict between realism and romance, madame – as typified by a book I am at present reading – a copy of the same book which I notice you are now carrying under your arm."

She glanced at him, curious, irresolute, waiting for him to continue. And as he did not, but stood moodily twirling his cap like a sulky schoolboy, she leaned back against a tree, saying: "You are very severe on romance, monsieur."

"You are very lenient with reality, madame."

"How do you know? I may be far more angry with you than you suspect. Indeed, every time I have seen you on the wall – " she hesitated, paling a trifle. She had made a mistake, unless he was more stupid than she dared hope.

"But until this morning I had done nothing to anger you?" he said, looking up sharply. Her features wore the indifference of perfect repose; his latent alarm subsided. She had made no mistake in his stupidity.

And now, perfectly conscious of the irregularity of the proceedings, perhaps a trifle exhilarated by it, she permitted curiosity to stir behind the curtain, ready for the proper cue.

"Of course," he said, colouring, "I know you perfectly well by sight – "

"And I you, monsieur – perfectly well. One notices strangers, particularly when reading so frequently about them in romance. This book" – she opened it leisurely and examined an illustration – "appears to describe the American quite perfectly. So, having read so much about Americans, I was a trifle curious to see one."

He did not know what to say; her youthful face was so innocent that suspicion subsided.

"That American you are reading about is merely a phantom of romance," he said honestly. "His type, if he ever did exist, would become such a public nuisance in Europe that the police would take charge of him – after a few kings and dukes had finished thrashing him."

"I do not believe you," she said, with a hint of surprise and defiance. "Besides, if it were true, what sense is there in destroying the pleasure of illusion? Romance is at least amusing; reality alone is a sorry scarecrow clothed in the faded rags of dreams. Do you think you do well to destroy the tinted film of romance through which every woman ever born gazes at man – and pardons him because the rainbow dims her vision?"

She leaned back against the silver birch once more and laid her white hand flat on the open pages of the book:

"Monsieur, if life were truly like this, fewer tears would fall from women's eyes – eyes which man, in his wisdom, takes pains to clear – to his own destruction!"

She struck the book a light blow, smiling up at him:

"Here in these pages are spring and youth eternal – blue skies and roses, love and love and love unending, and once more love, and the world's young heart afire! Close the book and what remains?" She closed the covers very gently. "What remains?" she asked, raising her blue eyes to him.

"You remain, madame."

She flushed with displeasure.

"And yet," he said, smiling, "if the hero of that book replied as I have you would have smiled. That is the false light the moon of romance sheds in competition with the living sun." He shrugged his broad shoulders, laughing: "The contrast between the heroine of that romance and you proves which is the lovelier, reality or romance – "

She bit her lips and looked at him narrowly, the high colour pulsating and dying in her cheeks. Under cover of the very shield that should have protected her he was using weapons which she herself had sanctioned – the impalpable weapons of romance.

Dusk, too, had already laid its bloom on hill and forest and had spun a haze along the stream – dusk, the accomplice of all the dim, jewelled forms that people the tinted shadows of romance. Why – if he had displeased her – did she not dismiss him? It is not with a question that a woman gives a man his congé.

"Why do you speak as you do?" she asked, gravely. "Why, merely because you are clever, do you twist words into compliments. We are scarcely on such a footing, monsieur."

"What I said I meant," he replied, slowly.

"Have I accorded you permission to say or mean?"

"No; that is the fashion of romance – a pretty one. But in life, sometimes, a man's heart beats out the words his lips deliver untricked with verbal tinsel."

Again she coloured, but met his eyes steadily enough.

"This is all wrong," she said; "you know it; I know it. If, in the woman standing here alone with you, I scarcely recognise myself, you, monsieur, will fail to remember her – if chance wills it that we meet again."

"My memory," he said in a low voice, "is controlled by your mind. What you forget I cannot recall."

She said, impulsively, "A gallant man speaks as you speak – in agreeable books of fiction as in reality. Oh, monsieur" – and she laughed a pretty, troubled laugh – "how can you expect me now to disbelieve in my Americans of romance?"

She had scarcely meant to say just that; she did not realise exactly what she had said until she read it in his face – read it, saw that he did not mean to misunderstand her, and, in the nervous flood of relief, stretched out her hand to him. He took it, laid his lips to the fragrant fingers, and relinquished it. Meanwhile his heart was choking him like the clutch of justice.

"Good-by," she said, her outstretched hand suspended as he had released it, then slowly falling. A moment's silence; the glow faded from the sky, and from her face, too; then suddenly the blue eyes glimmered with purest malice:

"Having neglected to bring your ladder this time, monsieur, pray accept the use of mine." And she pointed to a rustic ladder lying half-buried in the weedy tangle behind him.

He gave himself a moment to steady his voice: "I supposed there was a ladder here – somewhere," he said, quietly.

"Oh! And why did you suppose – " She spoke too hurriedly, and she began again, pleasantly indifferent: "The foresters use a ladder for pruning, not for climbing walls."

He strolled over to the thicket, lifted the light ladder, and set it against the wall. When he had done this he stepped back, examining the effect attentively; then, as though not satisfied, shifted it a trifle, surveyed the result, moved it again, dissatisfied.

"Let me see," he mused aloud, "I want to place it exactly where it was that night – " He looked back at her interrogatively. "Was it about where I have placed it?"

Her face was inscrutable.

"Or," he continued, thoughtfully, "was it an inch or two this way? I could tell exactly if the moon were up. Still" – he considered the ladder attentively – "I might be able to fix it with some accuracy if you would help me. Will you?"

"I do not understand," she said.

"Oh, it is nothing – still, if you wouldn't mind aiding me to settle a matter that interests me – would you?"

"With pleasure, monsieur," she said, indifferently. "What shall I do?"

So he mounted the ladder, crossed the wall, and stood on a stone niche on his side, looking down at the ladder. "Now," he said, "if you would be so amiable, madame, as to stand on the ladder for one moment you could aid me immensely."

"Mount that ladder, monsieur?"

She caught his eyes fixed on her; for just an instant she hesitated, then met them steadily enough; indeed, a growing and innocent curiosity widened her gaze, and she smiled and lifted her pretty shoulders – just a trifle, and her skirts a trifle, too; and, with a grace that made him tremble, she mounted the ladder, step by step, until her head and shoulders were on a level with his own across the wall.

"And now?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"The moon," he said, unsteadily, "ought to be about – there!"

"Where?" She turned her eyes inquiringly skyward.

But his heart had him by the throat again, and he was past all speech.

"Well, monsieur?" She waited in sweetest patience. Presently: "Have you finished your astronomical calculations? And may I descend?" He tried to speak, but was so long about it that she said very kindly: "You are trying to locate the moon, are you not?"

"No, madame – only a shadow."

"A shadow, monsieur?" – laughing.

"A shadow – a silhouette."

"Of what?"

"Of a – a woman's head against the moon."

"Monsieur, for a realist you are astonishingly romantic. Oh, you see I was right! You do belong in a book."

"You, also," he said, scarcely recognising his own voice. "Men – in books – do well to risk all for one word, one glance from you; men – in books – do well to die for you, who reign without a peer in all romance – "

"Monsieur," she faltered.

But he had found his voice – or one something like it – and he said: "You are right to rebuke me; romance is the shadow, life the substance; and you live; and as long as you live, living men must love you; as I love you, Countess of Semois."

"Oh," she breathed, tremulously, "oh, – you think that? You think I am the Countess of Semois? And that is why – "

For a moment her wide eyes hardened, then flashed brilliant with tears.

"Is that your romance, monsieur? – the romance of a Countess! Is your declaration for mistress or servant? – for the Countess or for her secretary – who sometimes makes her gowns, too? Ah, the sorry romance! Your declaration deserved an audience more fitting – "

"My declaration was made a week ago! The moon and you were audience enough. I love you."

"Monsieur, I – I beg you to release my hand – "

"No; you must listen – for the veil of romance is rent and we are face to face in the living world! Do you think a real man cares what title you wear, if you but wear his name? Countess that you are not– if you say you are not – but woman that you are, is there anything in Heaven or earth that can make love more than love? Veil your beautiful true eyes with romance, and answer me; look with clear, untroubled eyes upon throbbing, pulsating life; and answer me! Love is no more, no less, than love. I ask for yours; I gave you mine a week ago – in our first kiss."

Her face was white as a flower; the level beauty of her eyes set him trembling.

"Give me one chance," he breathed. "I am not mad enough to hope that the lightning struck us both at a single flash. Give me, in your charity, a chance – a little aid where I stand stunned, blinded, alone – you who can still see clearly!"

She did not stir or speak or cease to watch him from unwavering eyes; he leaned forward, drawing her inert hands together between his own; but she freed them, shivering.

"Will you not say one word to me?" he faltered.

"Three, monsieur." Her eyes closed, she covered them with her slender hands: "I – love – you."

Before the moon appeared she had taken leave of him, her hot, young face pressed to his, striving to say something for which she found no words. In tremulous silence she turned in his arms, unclasping his hands and yielding her own in fragrant adieu.

"Do you not know, oh, most wonderful of lovers – do you not know?" her eyes were saying, but her lips were motionless; she waited, reluctant, trembling. No, he could not understand – he did not care, and the knowledge of it suffused her very soul with a radiance that transfigured her.

So she left him, the promise of the moon silvering the trees. And he stood there on the wall, watching the lights break out in the windows of her house – stood there while his soul drifted above the world of moonlit shadow floating at his feet.

"Smith!"

Half aroused, he turned and looked down. The moonlight glimmered on Kingsbury's single eyeglass. After a moment his senses returned; he descended to the ground and peered at Kingsbury, rubbing his eyes.

With one accord they started toward the house, moving slowly, shoulder to shoulder.

"Not that I personally care," began Kingsbury. "I am sorry only on account of my country. I was, perhaps, precipitate; but I purchased one hundred and seven dolls of Mademoiselle Plessis – her private secretary – "

"What!"

"With whom," continued Kingsbury, thoughtfully, "I am agreeably in love. Such matters, Smith, cannot be wholly controlled by a sense of duty to one's country. Beauty and rank seldom coincide except in fiction. It appears" – he removed his single eyeglass, polished it with his handkerchief, replaced it, and examined the moon – "it appears," he continued blandly, "that it is the Countess of Semois who is – ah – so to speak, afflicted with red hair… The moon – ahem – is preternaturally bright this evening, Smith."