aight, his eyebrows lifted.

"I did not know!" he said. "May I felicitate you, mademoiselle?"

"On what?" she asked, puzzled.

"Since you wear a ring, it is evident that your engagement is to be
announced. Will you tell me who is the fortunate man?"

She saw that he was gazing at the emerald she wore on her little finger.
"Is there reason to think I am engaged--because of _this_?"

"Certainly, what else? A young girl's wearing a ring can mean but one
thing."

"On my little finger? How ridiculous! My father gave it to me.
Sometimes, at home, I wear several rings. Does that mean I am engaged to
several men?"

"Then you are still free?"

He hesitated as though under an impulse to say something sentimental,
then apparently changed his mind, and relapsed into his habitually
detached indifference of manner.

"They have curious customs in your country," he said casually. "A friend
of mine was in America last year. He told me many things!"

"Did he? What, for instance?"

"He said that the women sat in chairs that balanced back and forth----"

"Chairs that----" she interrupted. "Oh, you mean rocking-chairs! That's
true, you don't have them over here, do you? I did not mean to
interrupt. You said we rock----"

"Not you, it's the older women who balance all day on verandas, and let
their daughters do whatever they please! In an American family, I am
told, the young girl is supreme ruler. Is that true?"

Nina, laughing, shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know--I never thought
about it! But over here I suppose a girl does not count at all? Tell me,
according to your ideas, what her place should be."

"Oh, I do not say _should_. I merely state the fact: over here, a young
girl plays a very small role. But then, for the matter of that, most
people belong naturally in the background, and very few, whether they
are women or men, have their names on the program."

"And you? What part do you play?"

For a moment his eyes gleamed. "That depends upon whether fate shall
cast me to support a _diva_ or to occupy an empty stage."

"And if fate allowed you to choose, I could easily imagine that you
would prefer a part with very little action and as few lines as
possible."

"You are quite wrong. I do not object to saying all that a part calls
for, and, above all, I like action."

"That's true; I had forgotten! You are a soldier! I wonder why you went
into the army?"

"It is the only career open to me."

Nina was thinkin