er you
the plainest chicken and souffle aux fraises."

"Josiah can eat almost anything, papa. I don't think you need worry
about that," said Theodora, who hoped to make her husband enjoy himself.
And then Captain Fitzgerald left to meet his widow.

All the morning, while she walked up and down under the trees in the
Avenue du Bois beside her husband, who leaned upon her arm, Theodora's
thoughts were miles away. She felt stimulated, excited, intensely
interested in the hour, afraid they would be late. Twice she answered at
random, and Josiah got quite cross.

"I asked you which you considered would do me most good when we return
to England, to continue seeing Sir Baldwin once a week or to have Dr.
Wilton permanently in the house with us, and you answer that you quite
agree with me! Agree with what? Agree with which? You are talking
nonsense, girl!"

Theodora apologized gently, and her white velvet cheeks became tinged
with wild roses. It seemed as if the victoria, with its high-steppers,
would never come and pick them up; and it must be at least quarter of an
hour's drive to Henry's. She did not understand where it was exactly,
but papa had said the coachman would know.

If some one had told her, as Clementine certainly would have done had
she been there, that she was simply thus interested and excited because
she wished to see again Lord Bracondale, she would have been horrified.
She never had analyzed sensations herself, and the day had not yet
arrived when she would begin to do so.

At last they were rolling down the Champs-Elysees. The mass of chestnut
blooms in full glory, the tender green still fresh and springlike, the
sky as blue as blue, and every creature in the street with an air of
gayety--that Paris alone seems to inspire in the human race. It entered
into her blood, this rush of spring and hope and laughter and life, and
a radiant creature got out of the carriage at Henry's door.

The two men were waiting for them--Lord Bracondale and the French
Count--her father and Mrs. McBride had not yet appeared.

Theodora introduced them to her husband, and Lord Bracondale said:

"Mrs. McBride is always late. I have found out which is your father's
table; don't you think we might go and sit down?"

And they did. Theodora got well into the corner of the velvet sofa, the
Count on one side and Lord Bracondale on the other, with Josiah beyond
the Count.

They made conversation. The Frenchman was voluble and a