All day Kendall had been comparing Maude Knox with Andree. When he left the American girl and went home to his apartment he had been under the spell of her American manner, of her frankness, of the undefinable something which one finds in all American girls of the college type, of the cultured type, which is to be found in no other women the world over. When you have called it the American manner you have done your best at description.... It was the old story of like calling to like, of that to which one is accustomed seeming to be more desirable than even the most delightful of novelties. It was the call of home, the call of race, a thing that can never be negligible in the affairs of mankind.

A night of sleep rounded the sharp peaks of his impressions. When he awoke in the morning he did not see Maude Knox so distinctly, but an impression remained with him that would be permanent—that she was splendid, desirable, the sort of girl a fellow would like to be very well acquainted with. He went no farther than that. He was not so near to being in love with her as he was with Andree, or, if he were, he failed to recognize it.... He did recognize that Andree had become an important personage in his life, so important that he could not think of another girl without thinking immediately of her.

She was everything that Maude Knox was not and Maude Knox seemed to be everything that Andree was not. There was no single point at which their characters converged and ran parallel—except that both were “nice”.... And even their “niceness” was different. Kendall understood Maude’s niceness perfectly; Andree’s was a mystery to him; it was something he felt, but could not set down in any known terms.

One could readily imagine Maude playing golf or swimming or driving a car furiously and capably; it was impossible to imagine Andree doing any of these things. Andree was utterly feminine. One could be pals with Maude; with Andree, Kendall felt one could be bare acquaintance or sweetheart—nothing else.... One felt that Andree would give and give and give, asking only love in return: Maude would give and give, but would demand, as American women do, a like amount of giving in return.

Also, in the attraction which Andree exercised were the elements of mystery and of danger. It was something that he knew nothing about her; that she appeared as out of nothingness, and then disappeared into black night again—and that he was apprehensive as to where his acquaintance with her was leading him. To a young man of some imagination these two factors were compelling.... The more he thought of the girls that day the stronger grew his desire to be with Andree—to taste the charm of her presence and to sense the mystery that surrounded her, the mystery of herself and the mystery of a great race, apparent in her, and not understandable by him.

He was at the place of meeting early and there paced back and forth before the entrance to subterranean Paris, watching the crowds and waiting with impatience. The crowd was an old story to him now, but it never quite lost its fascination, never quite laid aside that air of unreality, of foreignness, of eventfulness that made the Paris throng of those days what it was—foreign in the eyes of the foreigner and foreign in the eyes of the Parisian.... He saw a slender girl—she seemed not more than twenty—bidding farewell to a youthful soldier. Their good-by was unrestrained and affecting. He was going to the north—to the battle-line—and always was the possibility that he might never return. It spoke eloquently in the fervor of that farewell.... They stood, locked in each other’s arms while their lips met again and again—with all the world to see. But none pointed or smiled. The world understood, and the heart of the world moved in sympathy.... Here was another girl who might never know the joys of wife or mother. If that young man did not return, she, fortunate in the possession of a sweetheart, might descend from her high place of happiness and security to the drab, hopeless level of her million sisters.... It was no ordinary parting—it was a parting with more than a loved one, for it was a possible parting with the right to live....

Then Andree appeared, in white once more, walking with tiny, demure little steps, unsmiling, apparently unconscious that she was not alone on that crowded corner. So she always came. At one moment she was not there; the next moment she appeared—from her mystery—appeared so modestly, so diffidently. Kendall said to himself that she came like some fairy, afraid lest a hostile glance or a human touch might send her back all too soon to the fairyland whence she came....

He advanced to meet her and, as she always did, she stopped as if startled, raised her eyes to his gravely, as if she had never seen him before, and then smiled that little smile which seemed to say that she was uncertain of her welcome, but hoped she would find it warm. Her slender hand was in his, with quaint formality, and she said in French: “Good-day, monsieur. How carry you yourself?”

“Very well. Very well. And you?”

“Oh, I have been bored! I have had to make a visit of duty. It was very tiresome....”

Then came the short, awkward pause while they adjusted themselves to each other and sought for words in languages strange with which to begin conversation. It was always so—that they spoke little for the first five minutes after a meeting. Neither seemed to find words to begin. Then she said, looking at him sidewise, with the merest hint of a smile in her lovely eyes, “Have you thought of me?”

“When I lifted up.” He laughed at this quotation of her literal translation of the French for arise. “In the morning, at noon, all the afternoon—always.”

“It is well,” she said. “I also have thought of you.”

“Where shall we eat?”

“I do not care.... It makes nothing.... Is Arlette well?” She laughed a little at recollection of Arlette.

For a few moments they walked along undecided, and then Kendall looked up to see Monsieur Robert approaching.

“Here’s your actor,” he said.

“What actor, monsieur?”

“Monsieur Robert.”

“You know heem?”

“I told you about him.”

“Yes.... Yes.... That was well.”

Monsieur Robert recognized Kendall, and looked quickly at Andree; then he smiled and waggled his head in the charming, boyish way he had, and lifted his hat.

“Good night,” he said, making a display of his English and extending his hand.

“Monsieur Robert, permit me, Mademoiselle Andree.”

The young actor took her hand and, with a smile that was half a laugh, bowed over it and made some response in French which was not intelligible to Kendall.

“Mademoiselle wishes to enter your profession,” Kendall said, with a twinkle in his eye. “She is going to the Académie in September.”

“Ah....” Monsieur Robert looked at her more carefully. “You enter the Académie?”

“I do not know—I hope.... I am working very hard.”

“And you wish to be an actress?... It is well. But why?”

“So she can come to New York, à la Madame Bernhardt, and bring home much money, and be too proud to know an old friend like myself when I sit in the front row and applaud.”

She smiled up at him. “When I come in New York you will go to see me?... But I shall be very great and famous. Oh yes. But I shall remember you, of a surety.... I shall remember you—a little.” There was an infinity of subdued roguishness about her.

Monsieur Robert was studying Andree with interest. “You will be ver’ pretty actress,” he said, haltingly, speaking in English so that Kendall would share in the compliment.

“You bet,” said Ken, spontaneously, and then, with characteristic American directness: “What’s this about the necessity for having some actor speak for her? She says she cannot enter unless some actor says a good word for her.”

“It makes the matter with more facility,” said Monsieur Robert.

Andree looked from Kendall to the young actor timidly, almost with the shyness of a child.

“Why not come and dine with us?” said Ken.

“I should be delighted, but it is not possible for me to-night. I am—how you say?—très-occupé.... But some other night—very soon.... With mademoiselle.” He waggled his head again and laughed his pleasing, boyish laugh.

“Shall we say to-morrow?”

“Oh, very well.”

“If it is possible for mademoiselle,” and Kendall looked at Andree.

“Yes,” she said, “to-morrow.”

“At Marty’s,” said Monsieur Robert.

“Seven o’clock?”

“It is well.... Au revoir, mademoiselle et monsieur. Until to-morrow.”

Presently Kendall stopped. “By Jove!” he said, “I forgot to tell Arlette I wouldn’t be home to dinner. She will have it ready. Shall we dine with her?”

“As you like.”

“And afterward we can sit and talk.”

“Oh, if only you can speak more French.... There are so many things we could speak of. I should like to talk of many things to you—and to read you poems.... You know French poets?”

Ken shook his head. “You like poetry, don’t you?... I’ll bet you’re a poet yourself? Don’t you make poems?”

“One leetle book,” she said, with a rueful shake of the head. “One leetle, small book.... But it was not good—oh no. In it are only two poems that are good. The rest are bad, ver’, ver’ bad.”

“I don’t believe a word of it. I’ll bet they’re great.”

“Non ... non!... I will bring them to you and you shall see.... But no. It is not possible for you to read. I am so sad ... so sad.” She laughed a little to show that she was not sad at all, and tripped along by his side, almost instantly returning to that quaint gravity which always baffled Kendall. He never could tell whether it was real gravity or a sort of protective coloring such as birds use to make themselves invisible to the hostile eye.

As they descended into the Metro they met, coming up the stairs, a handsomely dressed young woman, exquisitely shod, but so painted as to cheeks that one could not possibly imagine what her natural complexion might have been. She looked at Kendall boldly.

“Camouflage,” said Andree, serenely, when the young woman had passed. “I do not like ...”

It was not the first time Kendall had heard that Parisian term applied to the painted face, but he laughed now as if it were a fresh witticism to him. Andree made it fresh, for any sort of slang sounded so unnatural from her lips as to be irresistibly ludicrous ... like the harmless precocity of a child.

“Vous êtes très-jolie,” he said, with decision.

“No.... I am not pretty. You do not theenk. You make mock of me.” And then, as he wrinkled his nose: “Oh, why do you make grimace?... It is not nice for make grimace at me.... And now—oh, I see—your left eye it laughs, and the other it does not. Why is that? Why does your left eye laugh?” She pointed accusingly at the offending eye and stopped still, shaking her head. “Oh, you are ver’ bad. I do not like you.... No.... No.... I do not like you.” And then she laughed with that sudden change from mock gravity to delicious merriment of which she alone, of all the people Kendall knew, was capable.

When she did that she was so alluring, so cunning, that Kendall had to hold his arms stiff at his sides to prevent them from picking her up and cuddling her and kissing her.... It seemed that humor of hers was given her to tempt kisses. Yet there was nothing deliberately provocative about her, nothing. Quite the contrary. It seemed rather her desire to suppress such things as demonstrations of affection than to provoke them.

At the apartment the concierge bowed and smiled to them, and wished them a good evening. Up-stairs Arlette was manifestly upset by the appearance of an unexpected guest, but Andree disappeared into the kitchen, whence emerged a whirlwind of chatter, and all was well.... Bert was just finishing shaving.

“Andree, eh?” he said. “Why didn’t you tip me off, and I’d have gathered up Madeleine.”

“I don’t know.... I—” Kendall was thinking about the other night.

“Piffle!” said Bert. Then, “Do you mean to tell me—”

“I certainly do mean to tell you,” Ken said, belligerently.

“You get me, young fellow. You sure do....”

“Oh, dry up, and come to dinner—and behave if you can manage it.” Kendall went into the salon to rejoin Andree, more than a little apprehensive of the future if it should throw Andree and Madeleine together.

Andree was looking about the room with humorous toleration from a seat in the outrageous piece of furniture which she had claimed as her throne. “Mademoiselle Madeleine—she is not here?”

“No.”

“It is not well. Go and fetch her.... Now.... At once. Or I shall go away.” She shook her head and made stiff little gestures with her hand, but when he stood in front of her she twinkled at him and placed both hands in his when he held them out toward her. He retained them a moment and then raised them to his lips.

“You’re a sweet child,” he said.

“Oh, I do not onderstan’....I do not know.... Where is the dictionnaire?”

“No matter.... There’s Arlette announcing dinner.” It was Arlette’s custom to poke her head through the door when dinner was ready and to stare into the room silently and a little affrightedly. She never spoke. It was necessary to watch for the appearance of her head if one wanted to know when the meal was served.

Bert came in and Andree asked after Madeleine’s health as if she considered Bert personally responsible for it, demanding why she was not present.

“Ken’s afraid you don’t like her,” Bert said, mischievously.

“Mais oui.... Mais oui. I do like. I like ver’ much. Why you theenk?” She turned to Ken with the question.

“Don’t pay any attention to Bert. He thinks he has a sense of humor,” Ken said, but his ears were red, nevertheless, a circumstance which did not escape Andree’s sharp eyes. She let the matter pass and addressed herself to her food with that detachment from all other matters which always brought a smile to Kendall’s face. There were so many quaint, delightful attributes in her....

Toward the end of the dinner the diners heard a subdued whispering and giggling without, and then appeared little Arlette, bearing a dessert—a wonderful dessert. It was a pudding with a white frothiness of beaten egg covering it. It was a real dessert—the first, if one excepts fruit and ices without authority, that Ken had seen since he came to France. Little Arlette carried it to the table, and stood, big-eyed, mouth pursed, waiting for the astonishment which the miracle was to cause.... Arlette herself, wiping her chin on the back of her hand and grinning with delight, allowed her head to be seen through the door.

“It is from the concierge,” she said, very rapidly. “She sends it to messieurs with her compliments.”

“Now that’s mighty nice. You thank her, Arlette, and we’ll thank her when we go down.... I guess we haven’t made a hit with madame, eh?... And, mignonne! We must have another place, Arlette, and a spoon. But mignonne does not like pudding, eh?”

“Oui,” said little Arlette, her eyes growing even bigger, and the pucker turning into a smile.

Kendall settled the child at table and then gravely introduced her to Andree.

“She goes to America with me, you are to understand. I am about to ask Arlette for this young lady’s hand. But yes. We are very fond of each other. Is it not so, mademoiselle?”

“Yes, monsieur,” replied little Arlette, very gravely.

“Oh!... Oh!... You are ver’ naughty. I am jealous. I shall not stay. I shall go away.&r............