e. But where, ask you, is this somewhere? And I shall tell you.
This somewhere is in the eyes of the Parisian girl; this somewhere is in
the heart of the Parisian man. There, romance has not died--one must
believe, will never die.

And, having told you, I seem to hear you laugh. "We thought," I would
seem to hear you say, "that he was going to tell us of concrete places,
of concrete byways, where this so gorgeous romance yet tarries." And you
are aggrieved and disappointed. But I bid you patience. I am still too
young to be sentimental: so have you no fear. And yet, bereft of all of
sentimentality, I _re_-issue you my challenge: this somewhere is in the
eyes of the Parisian girl, this somewhere is in the heart of the
Parisian man.

By Parisian girl I mean not the order of Austrian wenches who twist
their tummies in elaborate tango epilepsies in the Place Pigalle, nor
the order of female curios who expectorate with all the gusto of
American drummers in La Hanneton, nor yet the Forty-niners who
foregather in the private entrance of 16 Rue Frochot. I do not mean the
dead-eyed joy jades of the cafe concerts in the Champs Elysees. I do not
mean the crow-souled scows who steam by night in the channels off the
Place de la Madeleine. The girl I mean is that girl you notice leaning
against the onyx balustrade at the Opera--that one with lips of Burgundy
and cheeks the colour of roses in olive oil. The girl I mean is that
phantom girl you see, from your table before the Rotonde across the way,
slipping past the iron grilling of the Luxembourg Gardens--that girl
with faded blouse but with eyes, you feel, a-colour with the lightning
of the world's jewels. The girl I mean is that girl you catch sight
of--but what matters it where? Or what she leans against or what she
wears or what her lips and eyes? If you know Paris, you know her.
Whether in the Allee des Acacias or in the boulevard Montparnasse, she
is the same: the real French girl of still abiding Parisian romance; the
real French girl in whose baby daughter, some day, will be perpetuated
the laughter of the soul of a city that will not fade. And in whose baby
girl in turn, some day long after that, it will be born anew.

Ah, me, the cynic in you! Do you protest that the girl of the
balustrade, the girl of the Luxembourg, are very probably American girls
here for visit? Well, well! _Tu te paye ma tete._ Who has heard of
romance in an American girl? I grant you, and I make gra