ined
that we weren't. "You have to have the Notary over from Bayonne, and
go to Church. I know, because that's how it was when my cousin Elodie
was married. We're only married in play?" Then she asked if that
wasn't just as good. "Things one does in play are always so much nicer
than real things," she said.'

'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings! She had a prophetic soul.'

'Hadn't she? I admitted that that was true. But I added that perhaps
when people were grown up and could do exactly as they pleased, it was
different,--perhaps real things would come to be pleasant too.'

'Have you found them so?'

'I suppose I can't be quite grown-up, for I've never yet had a chance
to do exactly as I pleased.'

'Poor young man. Go on.'

'And, besides, I reminded her, all the married people we knew were
really married, my father and mother, Andre's father and mother, my
cousin Elodie. Helene's mother was dead, so her parents didn't count.
And I argued that we might be sure they found it fun to be really
married, or else they wouldn't keep it up. "Oh, well, then, I suppose
we'll have to be really married too," she consented. "But it seems as
though it never could be as nice as this. If only you weren't going
away!" Whereupon I promised again to come back, if she'd promise to
wait for me, and never love anybody else, and never, never, never
allow another boy to kiss her. "Oh, never, never, never," she assured
me. Then her father called her, and they drove away.'

'And you went to Paris and forgot her. Why were you false to your
engagement?'

'Oh, she had allowed another boy to kiss her. She had married a German
prince. Besides, I received a good deal of discouragement from my
family. The next day, in the train, I confided our understanding to my
mother. My mother seemed to doubt whether her father would like me as
a son-in-law. I was certain he would; he was awfully good-natured; he
had given me two louis as a parting tip. "But do you think he'll care
to let his daughter marry a bourgeois?" my mother asked. "A what?"
cried I. "A bourgeois," said my mother. "I ain't a bourgeois," I
retorted indignantly. "What are you then?" pursued my mother. I
explained that my grandmother had been a countess, and my uncle was a
count; so how could I be a bourgeois? "But what is your father?" my
mother asked. Oh, my father was "only an Englishman." But that didn't
make me a bourgeois? "Yes, it does," my mother said. "Just because my
fa