After all, was she not one to make any boy--or any man--forget duty,
home, friends, everything?

Rather oddly his mind flashed back to the morning and to the words of
the little photographer, Bernstein. Perhaps the Jew had put it as well
as any man could:

"She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses ... the young Juno
before marriage...."

Ste. Marie nodded his head. Yes, she was just that. The little Jew had
spoken well. It could not be more fairly put--though without doubt it
could have been expressed at much greater length and with a great deal
more eloquence. The photographer's other words came also to his mind,
the more detailed description, and again he nodded his head, for this,
too, was true.

"She was all color--brown skin with a dull-red stain under the cheeks,
and a great mass of hair that was not black but very nearly
black--except in the sun, and then there were red lights in it."

It occurred to Ste. Marie, whimsically, that the two young people might
have stepped out of the door of Bernstein's studio straight into this
garden, judging from their bearing each to the other.

"Ah, a thing to touch the heart! Such devotion as that! Alas, that the
lady should seem so cold to it! ... Still, a goddess! What would you? A
queen among goddesses! ... One would not have them laugh and make little
jokes.... Make eyes at love-sick boys. No, indeed!"

Certainly Mlle. Coira O'Hara was not making eyes at the love-sick boy
who followed at her heel this afternoon. Perhaps it would be going too
far to say that she was cold to him, but it was very plain to see that
she was bored and weary, and that she wished she might be almost
anywhere else than where she was. She turned her beautiful face a little
toward the wall where Ste. Marie lay perdu, and he could see that her
eyes had the same dark fire, the same tragic look of appeal that he had
seen in them before--once in the Champs-Elysees and again in his dreams.

Abruptly he became aware that while he gazed, like a man in a trance,
the two young people walked on their way and were on the point of
passing beyond reach of eye or ear. He made a sudden involuntary
movement as if he would call them back, and for the first time his
faithful hiding-place, strained beyond silent endurance, betrayed him
with a loud rustle of shaken branches. Ste. Marie shrank back, his heart
in his throat. It was too late to retreat now down the tree. The damage
was already done. He