men say '_tres chic_.' It depend on when and
how one says it."

"Are there times when it is all right for me to say it?" he inquired.

"Yes, I think so.... How are your mules today?"

"The same," he said, "--ready to bite or kick or eat their heads off. The
Remount took two hundred this morning."

"I saw them pass," said the girl. "I thought perhaps you also might be
departing."

"Without coming to say good-bye--to _you_!" he stammered.

"Oh, conventions must be disregarded in time of war," she returned
carelessly, continuing to shell peas. "I really thought I saw you riding
away with the mules."

"That man," said Burley, much hurt, "was a bow-legged driver of the
Train-des-Equipages. I don't think he resembles me."

As she made no comment and expressed no contrition for her mistake, he
gazed about him at the sunny garden with a depressed expression. However,
this changed presently to a bright and hopeful one.

"Vooz ate tray, tray belle, mademoiselle!" he asserted cheerfully.

"Monsieur!" Vexed perhaps as much at her own quick blush as his abrupt
eulogy, she bit her lip and looked at him with an ominously level gaze.
Then, suddenly, she smiled.

"Monsieur Burley, one does _not_ so express one's self without reason,
without apropos, without--without encouragement----"

She blushed again, vividly. Under her wide straw hat her delicate,
sensitive face and dark blue eyes were beautiful enough to inspire eulogy
in any young man.

"Pardon," he said, confused by her reprimand and her loveliness. "I shall
hereafter only _think_ you are pretty, mademoiselle--mais je ne le dirais
ploo."

"That would be perhaps more--_comme il faut_, monsieur."

"Ploo!" he repeated with emphasis. "Ploo jamais! Je vous jure----"

"_Merci_; it is not perhaps necessary to swear quite so solemnly,
monsieur."

She raised her eyes from the pan, moving her small, sun-tanned hand
through the heaps of green peas, filling her palm with them and idly
letting them run through her slim fingers.

"L'amour," he said with an effort--"how funny it is--isn't it,
mademoiselle?"

"I know nothing about it," she replied with decision, and rose with her
pan of peas.

"Are you going, mademoiselle?"

"Yes."

"Have I offended you?"

"No."

He trailed after her down the garden path between rows of blue larkspurs
and hollyhocks--just at her dainty heels, because the brick walk was too
narrow for both of them.

"Ploo," he repeated appealin