Kendall Ware woke up to a world which was not all straight lines and angles, which was not an uncompromising and rule-of-thumb world as it had seemed yesterday. To-day it was a world in which curves and even curlicues were permissible. Yesterday he was in sympathy with the Blue Laws and could have understood a God who frowned if a man were to kiss his wife of a Sabbath. To-day he could not comprehend the attitude of yesterday, hardly remembered it, in fact. He was young, and rapid changes of attitude were possible to him as the heart was heavy or light, as events were kind or harsh. It would not have been true to say that he was light of heart this morning, but his heart was in a condition to become light, needing only to find Andree and to receive Andree’s forgiveness to make it so.

As was characteristic, the pendulum of his convictions had swung to the opposite and most remote point of its arc; where yesterday any deviation from orthodox rule and rigid form had been a sin, to-day he was inclined to err on the side of liberality. It seemed, rather, as if nothing could be wholly evil, and this simply because it had been shown to him that Andree was not evil and that his relations with her need not of necessity be degrading. Yesterday he had been possessed by his inheritances from his mother; to-day his father was in control. Just as the one had been exaggerated, so now the other was in extreme.... And therefore he could conceive happiness and stand upon the brink of happiness.... To be able to perceive virtue is to be happy. It is a perception which is its own reward....

Last night he had been afraid he would never find Andree; now he was certain she would be easy to find. It was the matter of forgiveness that caused his uneasiness. He had been brutal, harsh, presenting an unlovely spectacle. It was such a spectacle of a man’s self as might prove fatal to love, for who can love the unlovely? And yet when he thought of Andree’s gentleness, her sweetness, of all the many indications he had seen of a gracious and tender character, he even dared to hope that he had not offended past condoning.

He arose impatiently, eager for the day to commence so that it might end and enable him to take up his search.

“Bert!” he called. “Up yet?”

“Getting up,” Bert answered, drowsily.

“Is Arlette here yet?”

“Haven’t heard her.”

“What in thunder’s getting into her! Doesn’t she know a fellow’s got to have breakfast in the morning?”

“Huh—she isn’t due for quarter of an hour. What’s the sudden rush?”

Before he was fully clothed Arlette rapped on his closed door to demand his shoes, which he passed out to her, together with his puttees, and walked into Bert’s room, wearing bedroom slippers.

“Some uniform,” said Bert, eying the spectacle. “Ought to recommend it to the General Staff. Swagger, I call it. Now if you only wore red socks.... H’m! How you feeling this morning?”

“Hungry.”

“Surprising, seeing you didn’t eat anything all day yesterday.” Bert studied his friend’s face covertly and found reason for satisfaction. With more tact than his character warranted one to expect, he let the subject of yesterday rest there and did not again refer to it. He finished shaving in his usual leisurely manner, put on his blouse and belt, and was just in time to receive his shoes and leggings from Arlette.

“Mind having dinner late to-night?” Ken asked.

“No. Why?”

“I—I hope Andree will be here.”

“H’m!... Want me to look up Madeleine?”

“Rather you didn’t. We’ll—Well, you can see yourself that we’ll have a lot of talking to do.... I’ve got to square myself.”

“I’ll clear out altogether and let you have the place to yourselves.”

“No need. I might not—it’s possible I won’t find her.”

Bert thought that was highly probable, but he did not say so. “Just as you say,” he said. “What time?”

“Eight o’clock. If I’m not here by that time, go ahead and eat.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to camp in that café on the corner there until I find her.” Ken’s jaws became prominent. “I’ll stay there till I’m a permanent improvement.”

Arlette came in, casting apprehensive glances at Kendall; she was unsmiling and had nothing to say beyond the greetings of the morning. Ken realized that he was in her disfavor.

“Arlette,” he said.

She paused in the door and, glancing up to his face quickly, let her eyes shift to the carpet. “Yes, monsieur,” she said.

“You’re angry with me.”

“Non, monsieur.”

“Yes you are. You should be. I’ve been a fool.”

She looked up again, this time scrutinizing his face more carefully. “Monsieur did not conduct himself with wisdom,” she said.

“What should I have done, Arlette?” He was really curious to know what she would answer.

“It is never wise to hurt where one is loved,” she said. “Also one should be sure that no mistake is made—”

“But it was a mistake, Arlette.... If you loved as you told me you did once, and the man you loved behaved as I did, what would you do? Would you forgive him?”

“Me?” said Arlette. “Ah, who can say! It is many years, and love is only a thing to remember sometimes.... But I, monsieur, was not as Mademoiselle Andree is. Oh, no. There was weight to me, and a temper of the highest. Oh yes, and I spoke many words with great readiness. It is so.... What would you? Mademoiselle Andree is not at any point the same. She is gentle and sweet, monsieur, and it may be she is forgiving. As for me, I think if any man had so behaved to me he would have taken himself away with words in his ear that, I’ll warrant, would have leaped through to his clumsy brain, oui, and with other reminders that I was not to be dealt with after such a manner.... But, as I have said, I was of a weight, and my temper was high.”

“But you would have forgiven?”

Arlette waggled her head and wiped her chin on the back of her hand. “At least,” she said, “I should have made him earn my forgiveness.... Oh, Monsieur Ken, it was not well for you to treat her so; it was of a cruelty.... But I believe she will forgive; her eyes were of the kind that forgive with too great readiness.”

She turned and was about to disappear when she leaned far back to allow her face to present itself at a droll angle in the doorway. “Jealousy,” she said, “is a disease that makes heavy hearts. In very truth, I have seen it.... It is much better if one is not jealous. One cannot at the same time be jealous and wise.... And always there are regrets.”

“Will you have dinner at eight to-night? A nice dinner. I hope to find Mademoiselle Andree and bring her home again.”

“Find her? But monsieur has but to go to her address. She has not gone away?”

“I do not know her address.”

Arlette sighed and waggled her head ponderously.

“Then monsieur must apply to the police. All addresses are known to the police.”

“But I don’t know her name—only Andree.”

“Name of God!... Can such things be? Oh, these Americans! Who has seen their like? Not know her name, not know her address. It is of an impossibility!... Does he speak truly, monsieur?” she demanded of Bert, who nodded in the affirmative.

“Mon Dieu!... Mon Dieu!...” she exclaimed, and waddled off to the kitchen as if she dared no longer trust her body in the presence of such a madman.

“There,” said Bert, “now you know what a respectable body thinks of you. Apparently she thinks all Americans are in the habit of cutting up such capers. Most likely she believes addresses don’t count with us because we live under trees like savages, and never go back to the same tree twice....”

“Anybody who doesn’t do things exactly as you yourself do them is a savage. We think the French are barbarians, the French think we are barbarians, and the English consider both of us savages.... Come on, it’s time we were starting.”

When they reached the street Ken began to walk swiftly, as if by hurrying now he could make the day pass more quickly. At the office he plunged into his work, taking only the briefest period for lunch. At five o’clock he was on his way toward the Place St.-Michel to take up his sentry-go there. Somehow he was confident he would see Andree. What she did with her days he did not know, but he imagined she went into the city. Certainly she went somewhere, and to return she must traverse the square from the Metro station over at the left. He, therefore, took his station by the rim of the fountain and watched each passer-by. It was tiresome to watch and wait; the people did not interest him as they had always interested him before. Quaint couples passed unnoticed; children stopped to stare at him as he sat on the flat rim of the basin; venders of Rintintin and Ninette dangled their worsted dolls before him in vain. Once or twice he thought he saw her coming, and stood up eagerly, only to sink down again, disappointed.... And then he saw her coming; it was she unmistakably; there was no mistaking that tam, that flimsy little dress, that slender figure and her quaint, abstracted walk.

Long before she saw him he was groping for words, searching for the one thing to say, because he knew that there must be some single thought that should be put into words.... There must be some eloquent sentence which would explain all, gain forgiveness for all. But he could not find it. His French was gone; his English would not take form.

She crossed the square with little steps that seemed almost stiff, her body very erect, as always, and her eyes seeming to see nothing that went on about her. He fancied a shade of sadness was added to the gravity of her face.... She did not see him until he stood before her and spoke, and it was no eloquent sentence that he uttered, no wonderful thought that he put into words.

“Mignonne!...” he said.

She did not start, but merely stopped and raised her eyes to his face slowly. There was no surprise, no emotion of any sort to be seen, only that quaint gravity with which he was so familiar. She stopped and waited, as she always stopped and waited, ready, it seemed, to take her cue from what was about to happen. She might never have seen him before, but then, he thought, she always met him so—as if she had never seen him before.... She did not speak; only waited.

He was inarticulate, abashed, nonplussed. Suddenly it seemed to him that there was nothing to say, nothing that could be said. He had been guilty of conduct which removed him forever from her life, which was unforgivable. There was an impulse to turn and to hurry away from her, but he repressed it.... He must do something, say something.

“I’m ashamed,” he said, clumsily. “I’ve been miserable.... I had to find you and tell you.... I—What can I say? It was wicked—wicked....”

He could go no farther, could only search her face with his eyes for some reflection of her thoughts, for some sign that he might hope for pardon. She did not reply; there was no change in her expression, only that unfathomable gravity and that air of suspended judgment.

“Last night I tried to find you.... I sat and waited, but you did not come. I couldn’t go to sleep until I had begged you to forgive me.... I don’t deserve to be forgiven. What I did—what I said, was unforgivable.... Oh, Andree!...”

There was a little pause, then she said, “You have been sad?”

“Yes.”

“And I also,” she said, not reproachfully.

“I—Never before have I known what it was to suffer—and I have suffered. It was right that I should. I deserved punishment.” Even here the Puritan in him obtruded itself. “And you were so good, so sweet, so wonderful.... I know all about it now—and I was suspicious and brutal.... I was jealous, too. But I didn’t know I was jealous.... When I thought you were not good, it seemed to me that nothing in the world could be good. Do you understand?... But there’s no excuse for me. I should have known, and I should have trusted you.... I didn’t even give you a chance to explain....”

“Oh, you speak ver’ fast. I cannot onderstan’ all.... But you have not been happy—no.... It is to be seen.... At first I do not onderstan’, and I am ver’ sad and hurt—oh, ver’ sad. When I make to cross the pont I look down at the water—yes.... And then I say it is some mistake.... I say something have happen I do not know of and it makes you to be not like Monsieur Ken, but ver’ hurt and miserable and—how you say?—upset? Yes. I say, also, that I love Monsieur Ken and always that I am fidèle.... So what could it be?... If, then, it is nothing, only some mistake, then I am much sorry.... Not sorry for me, monsieur, who have done no wrong, but for you, who are mos’ unhappy.... It is so. My heart it makes to weep for you because you suffer....”

“Andree!...”

She nodded her head gravely. “I do not onderstan’ les Américains.... Non!... Non! They are of a difference. But I onderstan’ love which mus’ be the same in America as in France, so I say Monsieur Ken he is ver’ jealous and ver’ mistaken, and I mus’ be patient and not sad more than is nécessaire.... So I wait till thees mistake is not a mistake any more. And many times I mus’ say to myself that you are jealous, and therefore you love me. Because if there is not love, then there is not to be jealous, n’est-ce pas? So I am almos’ happy, but not quite ... because you love me.”

“And you don’t hate me? You can forgive me?”

“Oh, mon bien cher ami, there is nothing to forgive! It is so.... It is only that I cried sometimes for you, because you are mos’ miserable.... I say to theenk how sad you are, and then I cry.... I would not have you to be sad.”

“It isn’t possible,” Ken said, more than half to himself. “There’s nobody like this in the world.”

“Possible?... Pourquoi?”

“Mademoiselle Pourquoi—dear little Mademoiselle Pourquoi!” he said, softly.

“You are not angry with me any more—not jealous?”

“No.... No.”

“It is well.” She smiled for the first time and touched his arm with her little hand. “Then I am joyous.”

“You ought to be joyous always.... You are wonderful. When I think what you were giving up for me—and that I could suspect you—I hate myself.”

“But you are not sad now? There is not any mistake any more, and we are together. You are not sad?”

“Sad, mignonne!... Only when I think of what I said to you—things you can never forget—”

“Never forget?” She laughed a little. “Behol’, already I have forgotten. It is as if nothing ever happen’. I do not remember. Now”—she made that old familiar gesture of pointing repeatedly to the sidewalk with her finger to indicate the identical present second—“now I remember nothing. I do not know what you talk about.... You are ver’ droll, Monsieur Ken, to be speak so much about something I do not know ... about a something that have never happen’.”

Kendall felt something that was almost reverence for her; it was more than wonder and little less than awe. Never until that moment had he conceived of the possibility that such greatness of heart, such forgetfulness of self, such rightness could exist in the world.... He felt hi............