truth, was that
irrepressible Henri descended from his bronze horse and walking by her
side. That his later name happened to be Alec did not matter at all. She
knew that a spiteful Bourbon had melted down no less than two statues of
Napoleon in order to produce the fine cavalier who approved of her every
time she crossed the Pont Neuf, and it seemed as if some of the little
Corsican's dominance was allied with a touch of Bearnais swagger in the
stalwart youth whom she had met for the first time in Rudin's studio
about three weeks earlier.

They were steel and magnet at once. Delgrado had none of the
boulevardier's abounding self-conceit, or Joan would never have given
him a second look, while Joan's frank comradeship was vastly more
alluring than the skilled coquetry that left him cold. Physically, too,
they were well mated, each obviously made for the other by a
discriminating Providence. They were just beginning to discover the
fact, and this alarmed Joan.

She could not shake off the notion that he had waylaid her this morning
for a purpose wholly unconnected with the suggested visit to the polo
ground. So, tall and athletic though he was, she set such a pace up the
steps and through the lower galleries that further intimate talk became
impossible. Atalanta well knew what she was about when she ran her
suitors to death, and Meilanion showed a deep insight into human nature
when he arranged that she should loiter occasionally.

Delgrado, however, had no golden apples to drop in Joan's path, could
not even produce a conversational plum; but he was young enough to
believe in luck, and he hoped that fortune might favor him, once the
painting was in hand.

Each was so absorbed in the other that the Louvre might have been empty.
Certainly, neither of them noticed that a man crossing the Pont du
Carrousel in an open cab seemed to be vastly surprised when he saw them
hastening through the side entrance. He carried his interest to the
point of stopping the cab and following them. Young, clear skinned,
black-haired, exceedingly well dressed, with the eyes and eyelashes of
an Italian tenor, he moved with an air of distinction, and showed that
he was no stranger to the Louvre by his rapid decision that the Salle
des Moulages, with its forbidding plaster casts, was no likely resting
place for Delgrado and his pretty companion.

Making straight for the nearest stairs, he almost blundered upon Alec,
laden with Joan's easel a