, shaking her fair head. "Ah, well,
monsieur, it is an art--the keeping of an establishment--and must be
learned like any other!"

"And you think we ought to go to school?"

"I did not say that!" She laid down the loaf of bread, the butter, and
the milk-jug that she was carrying, and took the coffee from Blake's
hands with an air of pretty gravity. "And now, monsieur, where are the
cups?"

Blake turned to Max. "Cups?" he said in English. "I know we bought
something quite unique in the matter of cups, but where the deuce we put
them--For the love of God and the honor of the family, boy, tell me
where they are!"

Max's eyes were shining. "They are in the chest, _mon cher_. We put them
there for safety as we went out last night."

"Good! Give me the key."

"The key, _mon ami_, I have left at the Hotel Railleux!"

Consternation spread over Blake's face, then he burst out laughing and
turned to Jacqueline, relapsing into French.

"Monsieur Max would have you to know, mademoiselle, that he possesses an
altogether unusual and superior set of Oriental china, which he bought
from a certain villanous Jew at the corner of the rue Andre de Sarte;
that for safety he has locked that china into the artistic and musty
dower-chest standing against the wall; and that for greater safety he
has forgotten the key in an antique hotel near the Gare du Nord!"

He laughed again; Max laughed; the little Jacqueline laughed, and ran to
the door.

"Oh, _la! la_! What a pair of children!" She flitted out of the room,
returning with two cups, which she set beside the coffee and the milk.

"And now, messieurs, it is possible you can arrange for yourselves!" She
shot a bright, quizzical look from one to the other. "I know you would
wish me to stay and measure out the milk and sugar, and it would flatter
me to do so, but, unhappily, I have a dish of some importance upon my
own fire, and it is necessary that one is domestic when one is only a
woman--is it not so, Monsieur Max?" She wrinkled her pretty face into a
grimace of mischief, and nodded as if some idea infinitely amusing,
infinitely profound lurked at the back of her blonde head.

"Good-day, Monsieur Edouard. Good-day, Monsieur Max!"

"Strange little creature!" said Blake, as the door closed upon her.
"Frail as a butterfly, with one capacity to prevent her taking wing!"

"And that capacity--what is it?" Max had returned to his former
position, and was pouring out the coffee as he