fee and this
dimanche I have the vertigo."

Honora laughed again at the memory of the dizzy Sunday afternoons of her
childhood, when she had been taken to see Mr. Isham's curios.

"You are cruel," said the Vicomte; "you laugh at my tortures."

"On the contrary, I think I understand them," she replied. "I have often
felt the same way."

"My instinct was true, then," he cried triumphantly; "the first time my
eyes fell on you, I said to myself, 'ah! there is one who understands.'
And I am seldom mistaken."

"Your experience with the opposite sex," ventured Honora, "must have
made you infallible."

He shrugged and smiled, as one whose modesty forbade the mention of
conquests.

"You do not belong here either, Mademoiselle," he said. "You are not
like these people. You have temperament, and a future--believe me. Why
do you waste your time?"

"What do you mean, Vicomte?"

"Ah, it is not necessary to explain what I mean. It is that you do not
choose to understand--you are far too clever. Why is it, then, that you
bore yourself by regarding Institutions and listening to sermons in your
jeunesse? It is all very well for Mademoiselle Susan, but you are not
created for a religieuse. And again, it pleases you to spend hours with
the stockbroker, who is as lacking in esprit as the bull of Joshua. He
is no companion for you."

"I am afraid," she said reprovingly, "that you do not understand Mr.
Spence."

"Par exemple!" cried the Vicomte; "have I not seen hundreds' like
him? Do not they come to Paris and live in the great hotels and demand
cocktails and read the stock reports and send cablegrams all the day
long? and go to the Folies Bergeres, and yawn? Nom de nom, of what does
his conversation consist? Of the price of railroads;--is it not so? I,
who speak to you, have talked to him. Does he know how to make love?"

"That accomplishment is not thought of very highly in America," Honora
replied.

"It is because you are a new country," he declared.

"And you are mad over money. Money has taken the place of love."

"Is money so despised in France?" she asked. "I have heard--that you
married for it!"

"Touch!" cried the Vicomte, laughing. "You see, I am frank with you. We
marry for money, yes, but we do not make a god of it. It is our servant.
You make it, and we enjoy it. Yes, and you, Mademoiselle--you, too, were
made to enjoy. You do not belong here," he said, with a disdainful sweep
of the arm. "Ah, I have solved