o
her cousin. "You see, mother and I want to see and hear everything we
can. We have done so little traveling and seen so little in our lives
that this coming to Paris is like a visit to fairyland to us. I am
afraid I'll wake up and find it is all a dream."

"I feel as though I were in a dream, too," said Philippe. "I have had so
little chance to talk to girls like you and Miss Kean. _La jeune fille_,
_bien elevee_, in France is so missish and afraid to speak out to a man.
You and your friend look me straight in the eye without the least
affectation of timidity, just as though you were boys instead of girls;
and at the same time you are delightfully feminine. It is a strange
thing to me to watch one of these girls of my country, with downcast
eyes and so much modesty she can hardly speak above a whisper. The
moment she becomes _madame_ all this timidity disappears, and in the
twinkling of an eye she is the charming young married woman, full of all
the arts and graces. The transformation is so sudden, it makes one doubt
the sincerity of the former modesty. Mother says the French girl is thus
because it is what the average Frenchman wants, the old story of supply
and demand. But I am half Anglo-Saxon and want no such person for my
wife. My mother has spoiled me, and I can never be happy with a
hypocrite."

Molly smiled, thinking that while her cousin was declaring himself
Anglo-Saxon, he was certainly not talking like one. Such candor is
seldom seen in the male Anglo-Saxon. His warmth and fervor were
decidedly French.

The house was beginning to fill and many glasses were leveled at the box
of Madame la Marquise d'Ochte. The general verdict was that it was a
very effective grouping. Certainly there were not two middle-aged women
in the whole audience more distinguished looking or handsomer than the
marchioness and her cousin; nor were there two fresher or sweeter
looking girls, charming in their eagerness to see and not for one moment
conscious that they were attracting any attention. The marquis and
Philippe formed a pleasing background of masculinity to these beautiful
women.

The opening scene, _Louise's_ garret room in her father's house with the
view through the window of her lover's studio; the duet with her lover
in which she tells him of her father's refusal to their marriage; and
then her promise to run away with him in event of her parent's
persisting in his hard-hearted resolution to separate them, seemed