He himself
was able to smile with them now. Then she held out her gloved hand,
and he felt alone again.

"I may accompany you home, may I not?" he asked eagerly.

"If you wish."

Once again she raised her eyes with that expression of puzzled
interest. This was not like Monte. Of course he would accompany her
home, but that he should seem really to take pleasure in the
prospect--that was novel.

"Let me call a taxi," he said. "I'm never sure where these French
undergrounds are going to land me."

"They are much quicker," she suggested.

"There is no hurry," he answered.

With twenty-four hours a day on his hands, he was never in a hurry.

Instead of giving to the driver the number sixty-four Boulevard
Saint-Germain, he ordered him to forty-seven Rue Saint-Michel, which is
the Cafe d'Harcourt.

It had suddenly occurred to Monte what the trouble was with him. He
was lonesome.

CHAPTER II

THE TROUBLE WITH MARJORY

She was surprised when the car stopped before the cafe, and mildly
interested.

"Do you mind?" he asked.

"No, Monte."

She followed him through the smoke and chatter to one of the little
dining-rooms in the rear where the smoke and chatter were somewhat
subdued. There Henri removed their wraps with a look of frank
approval. It was rather an elaborate dinner that Monte ordered,
because he remembered for the first time that he had not yet dined this
evening. It was also a dinner of which he felt Edhart would thoroughly
approve, and that always was a satisfaction.

"Now," he said to the girl, as soon as Henri had left, "tell me about
yourself."

"You knew about Aunt Kitty?" she asked.

"No," he replied hesitatingly, with an uneasy feeling that it was one
of those things that he should know about.

"She was taken ill here in Paris in February, and died shortly after we
reached New York," she explained.

What Covington would have honestly liked to do was to congratulate her.
Stripping the situation of all sentimentalism, the naked truth remained
that she had for ten years given up her life utterly to her aunt--had
almost sold herself into slavery. Ostensibly this Aunt Kitty had taken
the girl to educate, although she had never forgiven her sister for
having married Stockton; had never forgiven her for having had this
child, which had cost her life; had never forgiven Stockton for losing
in business her sister's share of the Dolliver fortune.

Poor old Stockton--he had do