It was exactly as it had been—a square room bounded by long seats before tables. Some two dozen young ladies of various nationalities wandered about the center of the room, trying their best, but with manifest effort, to keep pace to the frenzied music of an orchestra paid to keep frenzied. A half-dozen of the ladies pounced upon Monte as he sat alone, and he gladly turned over to them the wine he purchased as the price of admission. Yvonne, she with the languid Egyptian eyes, tried to rouse the big American. Was it that he was bored? Possibly it was that, Monte admitted. Then another bottle of wine was the proper thing. So he ordered another bottle, and to the toast Yvonne proposed, raised his glass. But the wine did him no good, and the music did him no good, and Yvonne did him no good. The place had gone flat. Whatever he needed, it was nothing l'Abbaye had to offer.

Covington went out into the night again, and, though the music from a dozen other cafés called him to come in and forget, he continued down the hill to the boulevard, deaf to the gay entreaties of the whole city. It was clear that he was out of tune with Paris.

As he came into the Place de l'Opera he ran into the crowd pouring from the big gray opera house, an eager, voluble crowd that jostled him about as if he were an intruder. They had been warmed by fine music and stirred by the great passions of this mimic world, so that the women clung more tightly to the arms of their escorts.

Covington, who had fallen back a little to watch them pass, felt strangely isolated. They hurried on without seeing him, as if he were merely some spectral bystander. Yet the significant fact was not that a thousand strangers should pass him without being aware of his presence, but that he himself should notice their indifference. It was not like him.

Ordinarily it was exactly what he would desire. But to-night he was in an unusual mood—a mood that was the culmination of a restlessness covering an entire month. But what the deuce was the name and cause of it? He could no longer attribute it to the fact that he had gone stale physically, because he had now had a rest of several weeks. It was not that he was bored; those who are bored never stop to ask themselves why they are bored or they would not be bored. It was not that he was homesick, because, strictly speaking, he had no home. A home seems to involve the female element and some degree of permanence. This unrest was something new—something, apparently, that had to do vaguely with the fact that he was thirty-two. If Edhart—

Impatiently he started again for his hotel. This confoundedly good-natured, self-satisfied crowd moving in couples irritated him. At that moment a tall, slender girl turned, hesitated, then started toward him. He did not recognize her at first, but the mere fact that she came toward him—that any one came toward him—quickened his pulse. It brought him back instantly from the shadowy realm of specters to the good old solid earth. It was he, Covington, who was standing there.

Then she raised her eyes—dark eyes deep as trout pools; steady, confident, but rather sad eyes. They appeared to be puzzled by the eagerness with which he stepped forward and grasped her hand.

"Marjory!" he exclaimed. "I did n't know you were in Paris!"

She smiled—a smile that extended no farther than the corners of her perfect mouth.

"That's to excuse yourself for not looking me up, Monte?"

She had a full, clear voice. It was good to hear a voice that he could recognize.

"No," he answered frankly. "That's honest. I thought you were somewhere in Brittany. But are you bound anywhere in particular?"

"Only home."

"Still living on the Boulevard Saint-Germain?"

She nodded.

"Number forty-three?"

He was glad he was able to remember that number.

"Number sixty-four," she corrected.

They had been moving toward the Metro station, and here she paused.

"There is no need for you to come with me," she said. "But I'd like to have you drop in for tea some afternoon—if you have time."

The strangers were still hurrying past him—to the north, the south, the east, the west. Men and women were hurrying past, laughing, intent upon themselves, each with some definite objective in mind. He himself was able to smile with them now. Then she held out her gloved hand, and he felt alone again.

"I may accompany you home, may I not?" he asked eagerly.

"If you wish."

Once again she raised her eyes with that expression of puzzled interest. This was not like Monte. Of course he would accompany her home, but that he should seem really to take pleasure in the prospect—that was novel.

"Let me call a taxi," he said. "I'm never sure where these French undergrounds are going to land me."

"They are much quicker," she suggested.

"There is no hurry," he answered.

With twenty-four hours a day on his hands, he was never in a hurry.

Instead of giving to the driver the number sixty-four Boulevard Saint-Germain, he ordered him to forty-seven Rue Saint-Michel, which is the Café d'Harcourt.

It had suddenly occurred to Monte what the trouble was with him. He was lonesome.

CHAPTER II

THE TROUBLE WITH MARJORY

She was surprised when the car stopped before the café, and mildly interested.

"Do you mind?" he asked.

"No, Monte."

She followed him through the smoke and chatter to one of the little dining-rooms in the rear where the smoke and chatter were somewhat subdued. There Henri removed their wraps with a look of frank approval. It was rather an elaborate dinner that Monte ordered, because he remembered for the first time that he had not yet dined this evening. It was also a dinner of which he felt Edhart would thoroughly approve, and that always was a satisfaction.

"Now," he said to the girl, as soon as Henri had left, "tell me about yourself."

"You knew about Aunt Kitty?" she asked.

"No," he replied hesitatingly, with an uneasy feeling that it was one of those things that he should know about.

"She was taken ill here in Paris in February, and died shortly after we reached New York," she explained.

What Covington would have honestly liked to do was to congratulate her. Stripping the situation of all sentimentalism, the naked truth remained that she had for ten years given up her life utterly to her aunt—had almost sold herself into slavery. Ostensibly this Aunt Kitty had taken the girl to educate, although she had never forgiven her sister for having married Stockton; had never forgiven her for having had this child, which had cost her life; had never forgiven Stockton for losing in business her sister's share of the Dolliver fortune.

Poor old Stockton—he had done his best, and the failure killed him. It was Chic Warren who had told Covington the pitiful little tale. Chic always spoke of the aunt as "the Vamp.," the abbreviation, as he explained, being solely out of respect to her gray hairs. Marjory had received her education, to be sure; but she had paid for it in the only coin she had—the best of her young self from seventeen to twenty-seven. The only concession the aunt had ever made was to allow her niece to study art in Paris this last year.

"I have n't heard from Chic since Christmas," he explained; "so I did n't know. Then you are back here in Paris—alone?"

Unconsciously he had emphasized that word "alone."

"Why not?" she asked directly.

She held her head a bit high, as if in challenge.

"Nothing; only—"

He did not finish. He could not very well tell her that she was too confoundedly good-looking to be alone in Paris. Yet that was what he thought, in spite of his belief that, of all the women he had ever met, she was the best able to be alone anywhere. There were times when he had sat beside her, not feeling sure that he was in the