he window with a perfectly natural movement, and yet so
swiftly that our eyes met before I could look away. She leaned a
little forward in her place, and her forehead darkened.

"Perhaps, sir," she said, "you will be good enough to tell me the
meaning of your persistent impertinence?"

CHAPTER IX

A TRAVELLING ACQUAINTANCE

Her words were so unexpected that for a moment or two I was
speechless. On the whole, I scarcely felt that I deserved the cold
contempt of her voice or the angry flash in her eyes.

"I am afraid I don't understand you," I said. "If you refer to the
fact that I was watching you with some interest at that moment, I
suppose I must plead guilty. On the other hand, I object altogether to
the term 'impertinence.'"

"And why do you object?" she asked, looking at me steadily, and
beating with her little hand the arm-rest by her side. "If your
behavior is not impertinence, pray what is it? We meet at the Opera.
You look. It is not enough for you that you look once, but you look
twice, three times. You come out on to the pavement to hear the
address which my uncle gives the chauffeur. We go to a restaurant for
supper, where only the few are admitted. You are content to be
brought by a waiter, but you are there! You travel to England by the
same train,--you walk up and down past my compartment. You presume to
address me upon the boat. You give a fee to the guard that he should
put us in your carriage. Yet you object to the term 'impertinence'!"

"I do," I answered, "most strongly. I consider your use of the word
absolutely uncalled for."

She looked across at the sleeping man. He was breathing heavily, and
was evidently quite unconscious of our conversation.

"Your standard of manners is, I am afraid, a peculiar one," she said.
"In Paris one is used always to be stared at. Englishmen, I was told,
behaved better."

She took up a magazine and turned away with a shrug of the shoulders.
I leaned a little further forward in my place, and lowered my voice so
as not to disturb the sleeping man.

"You are really unjust to me," I said. "I will plead guilty to
noticing you at the Opera House, but I did so as I would have done any
well-dressed young woman who formed a part of the show there. So far
as regards my visit to the Cafe des Deux Epingles, I went at the
suggestion of Louis, whom I met by accident, and who is the _maitre
d'hotel_ at my favorite restaurant. I had no idea that you were
going t