last for a child. Men are more paternal than they are credited with
being, and Bulstrode directly foresaw delightful _causeries_ in the
future with--(he knew many women)--_with one woman_ whose pretty taste,
whose wit and humor, should counsel him in his new role. Mrs. Falconer
would dress Simone--her hand should be wonderfully in it all.
Bulstrode had let his fancy linger over the scheme. Certainly, during
the hour in which he spun his fanciful plan, there was not one bar to
its execution. Nor did there come to him any hint of its intrinsic
sterility, or the idea that it was possibly an excuse for the
interweaving of another interest more closely with his life--no idea
that he was simply strengthening an old bond, or by means of this
little tug pushing a mighty vessel nearer port.

He almost happily mused until a nursery grew out of thin air, a child's
little garments lay on a chair, and festivities, whose charm is of the
most mysterious, illuminated his reverie. Bulstrode, even without the
shudder of the climatician, contemplated the rigors of his own country,
for a rosy room grew out of his dream, fire-lit and fragrant with fir
and holly, and in the centre shone The Tree, whose shiny globes and
marvels were reflected till they danced in a child's eyes.

There had been an hour earlier the quick, brusque dash of a French
thunder-storm, and the cooled air came refreshingly from the garden as
Bulstrode stood out on the terrace before going into the noonday
breakfast. Prosper, fetching his master's coffee at nine o'clock, had
been informed that they were leaving Paris that day and received
instructions as to the setting in order of the hotel before returning
it to its proprietor. Where his wanderings were to take him Bulstrode
had not as yet made up his mind. It, after all, mattered so very
little what a bachelor did with his leisure! It was the height of the
season along the seacoast and a dozen places brilliantly beckoned;
there were tri-weekly boats to the country, where he should most
properly be.

"There is," he with recurrent leeway to his inclinations reflected,
"always plenty of time to decide what one does not want to do!"

As he glanced at the little breakfast spread temptingly there for him
on the terrace he was arrested by the sound of French voices in quick,
agitated discussion, and looked up to see the unceremonious entrance of
quite a little band of people who had in point of fact penetrated his