housand francs, he utterly refused. He called
it buying a son-in-law, but I don't see why he need have looked at it in
that light. However, it was broken off, and we left Florence--more
for poor Gigi's sake than for Genevieve's, I must say. He was quite
heart-broken; I pitied him."

Her voice had a tender fall in the closing words, and Westover could
fancy how sweet she would make her compassion to the young man. She
began several sentences aimlessly, and he suggested, to supply the
broken thread of her discourse rather than to offer consolation, while
her eyes seemed to wander with her mind, and ranged the avenue up and
down: "Those foreign marriages are not always successful."

"No, they are not," she assented. "But don't you think they're better
with Italians than with Germans, for instance."

"I don't suppose the Italians expect their wives to black their boots,
but I've heard that they beat them, sometimes."

"In exaggerated cases, perhaps they do," Mrs. Vostrand admitted. "And,
of course," she added, thoughtfully, "there is nothing like a purely
American marriage for happiness."

Westover wondered how she really regarded her own marriage, but she
never betrayed any consciousness of its variance from the type.

XIX.

A young couple came strolling down the avenue who to Westover's artistic
eye first typified grace and strength, and then to his more personal
perception identified themselves as Genevieve Vostrand and Jeff Durgin.

They faltered before one of the benches beside the mall, and he seemed
to be begging her to sit down. She cast her eyes round till they must
have caught the window of her mother's apartment; then, as if she felt
safe under it, she sank into the seat and Jeff put himself beside her.
It was quite too early yet for the simple lovers who publicly notify
their happiness by the embraces and hand-clasps everywhere evident in
our parks and gardens; and a Boston pair of social tradition would not
have dreamed of sitting on a bench in Commonwealth Avenue at any hour.
But two such aliens as Jeff and Miss Vostrand might very well do so; and
Westover sympathized with their bohemian impulse.

Mrs. Vostrand and he watched them awhile, in talk that straggled away
from them, and became more and more distraught in view of them. Jeff
leaned forward, and drew on the ground with the point of his stick;
Genevieve held her head motionless at a pensive droop. It was only their
backs that Westover co