tony of office life an adventure as strange as any which I could
have conceived as possible for any human unit of these numberless men
and women.

Captain Merton lived so far away from the quarter in which I had been
leaving cards that it was close to dusk when I got out of the
carriage at the hotel I sought.

I meant to return on foot, but hearing thunder, and rain beginning to
fall heavily, I told Alphonse to keep the carriage. The captain was
not at home. I had taken his card from my pocket to assure me in
regard to the address, and as I hurried to reenter my coupe I put it
in my card-case for future reference.

III

As I sat down in the coupe, and Alphonse was about to close the door,
I saw behind him a lady standing in the heavy downfall of rain. I said
in my best French: "Get in, madame. I will get out and leave you the
carriage." For a moment she hesitated, and then got in and stood a
moment, saying, "Thank you, but I insist that monsieur does not get
out in the rain." It was just then a torrent. "Let me leave monsieur
where he would desire to go." I said I intended to go to the Rue de la
Paix, but I added, "If madame has no objection, may I not first drop
her wherever she wishes to go?"

"Oh, no, no! It is far--too far." She was, as it seemed to me,
somewhat agitated. For a moment I supposed this to be due to
the annoyance a ride with a strange man might have suggested as
compromising, or at least as the Parisian regards such incidents.
Alphonse waited calmly, the door still open.

Again I offered to leave her the carriage, and again she refused. I
said, "Might I then ask where madame desires to go?"

She hesitated a moment, and then asked irrelevantly, "Monsieur is not
French?"

"Oh, no. I am an American."

"And I, too." She showed at once a certain relief, and I felt with
pleasure that had I been other than her countryman she would not have
trusted me as she did. She added: "On no account could I permit you to
get out in this storm. If I ask you to set me down in the Bois--I
mean, if not inconvenient--"

"Of course," I replied. "Get up, Alphonse." It was, I thought, a
rather vague direction, but there was already something odd in this
small adventure. No doubt she would presently be more specific. "The
Bois, Alphonse," I repeated. A glance at my countrywoman left with me
the impression of a lady, very handsome, about twenty-five, and
presumably married. Why she was so very evidently pertu