little
suppers after the theatre, when rooms and garden were lighted with
fairy lanterns, and his chef outdid his traditions to please his
American master.

One day as the American sat smoking on the terrace with nothing more
disturbing than the drip of the fountain and the remote murmur of Paris
to break his reverie, Prosper, his confidential man, made a tentative
appearance.

"Would m'sieu, _who is so good_, see a young lady?"

His master smiled as he rose, instinctively at the words "jeune
demoiselle," throwing away his cigar.

"Pardon, m'sieu, I thought it might amuse m'sieu--" and Prosper stepped
back.

Bulstrode had been intently thinking of the caravansary opposite him,
and he now saw that part of the _hotel meuble_ had come across the
street; he recognized it immediately for the smallest part. Before him
stood the ridiculous and pathetic figure of a dirty little girl in
rags, tatters, and furbelows, her legs clad in red silk stockings
evidently intended for fuller, shapelier limbs; her feet slipped about
in pattens. She had on a woman's bodice, a long flounced skirt pinned
up to keep her from tripping. Her head was adorned by a torn straw
hat, also contrived and created for the coquetry of maturity.

"Monsieur is so good," she began in a flute-like voice. "I have come
to thank monsieur with all my heart."

Bulstrode looked toward Prosper for enlightenment, but that individual
had cleverly disappeared.

"To thank me, my child? But for what?"

"Why, for the eggs and butter and sugar that monsieur was so good as to
send me. I have made the cake. It is beautiful! Monsieur le
cuisinier of this house baked it for me. It is perhaps a little
flat--but that was because I got tired stirring. See--it says--" She
had, so he now saw, a book under her arm; letting fall a fold of her
cumbersome dress with both hands and opening a filthy cook-book, she
laid it on the table, bending over it. "It says stir briskly half an
hour." (Her "rs" rolled in her throat like tiny cannons in a rosy
hollow.) "Quelle idee! It was _too_ stupid! Half an hour! I just
mixed it round once or twice and then--voila! it has white on the top
and shall have a candle."

"So you've made a cake?" he said kindly. "I'm sure it's a good one."

She nodded brightly. "It is for that I came to thank monsieur and to
ask if he would accept a piece of it."

Poor Bulstrode, with dreadful suspicion, looked to see part of the
horror