her hair was very fine and silky and
about the color of a frosted chestnut-burr. She wore it in a long bob
with curls around her face and neck, and I knew without being told
that those ringlets weren't put in with a hot iron. Her face was pale,
colorless and fine-textured as a magnolia petal, but her lips were
brilliant crimson. There was something reminiscent of those ladies you
see pictured in Directoire prints about her; small, regular features,
straight, white, high-waisted gown tied with a wide girdle underneath
her bosom, low, round-cut neck and tiny, ball-puff sleeves that left
her lovely arms uncovered to the shoulder. She was like Rose
Beauharnais or Madame de Fontenay, except for her fair hair, and her
eyes. Her eyes were like an Eastern slave's, languishing and
passionate, even when she laughed. And she was laughing then, with a
throaty, almost caressing laugh as I tossed the flower up to her and
she leant across the iron railing, snatching at it futilely as it fell
just short of reach.

"'_C'est sans profit_,' she laughed at last. 'Your skill is too small
or my arm too short, _m'sieur_. Bring it up to me.'

"'You mean for me to come up there?' I asked.

"'But certainly. I have teeth, but will not bite you--maybe.'

"The street door to the house was open; I pushed it back, groped my
way along a narrow hall and climbed a flight of winding stairs. She
was waiting for me on the balcony, lovelier, close up, if that were
possible, than when I'd seen her from the sidewalk. Her gown was China
silk, so sheer and clinging that the shadow of her charming figure
showed against its rippling folds like a lovely silhouette; the sash
which bound it was a six-foot length of rainbow ribbon tied
coquettishly beneath her shoulders and trailing in fringed ends almost
to her dress-hem at the back; her feet were stockingless and shod with
sandals fastened with cross-straps of purple grosgrain laced about the
ankles. Save for the small gold rings that scintillated in her ears,
she wore no ornaments of any kind.

"'_Mon fleur, m'sieur_,' she ordered haughtily, stretching out her
hand; then her eyes lighted with sudden laughter and she turned her
back to me, bending her head forward. 'But no, it fell into your
hands; it is that you must put in its place again,' she ordered,
pointing to a curl where she wished the flower set. 'Come, _m'sieur_,
I wait upon you.'

"On the settee by the wall a guitar lay. She picked it up and ran