east! Will there be room?"

"Plenty," replied Aristide, brightening. "But would it meet the wishes
of madame?" Her pale face flushed ever so slightly and the soft eyes
fluttered at him a half-astonished, half-grateful glance.

"With my husband and you, monsieur, I should love it," she said.

So Mr. and Mrs. Batterby joined the personally-conducted party, as they
did the next morning, and the next, and several mornings after, and
received esoteric information concerning the monuments of Paris that is
hidden even from the erudite. The evenings, however, Aristide, being off
duty, devoted to their especial entertainment. He took them to riotous
and perspiring restaurants where they dined gorgeously for three francs
fifty, wine included; to open-air _cafes-concerts_ in the Champs
Elysees, which Fleurette found infinitely diverting, but which bored
Batterby, who knew not French, to stertorous slumber; to crowded
brasseries on the Boulevard, where Batterby awakened, under a steady
flow of whisky, to appreciative contemplation of Paris life. As in the
old days of the Rusholme Road, Batterby flung his money about with
unostentatious generosity. He was out for a beano, he declared, and hang
the expense! Aristide, whose purse, scantily filled (truth to say) by
the profits of the Agence Pujol, could contribute but modestly to this
reckless expenditure, found himself forced to accept his friend's lavish
hospitality. Once or twice, delicately, he suggested withdrawal from the
evening's dissipation.

"But, my good M. Pujol," said Fleurette, with childish tragicality in
her _pervenche_ eyes, "without you we shall be lost. We shall not enjoy
ourselves at all, at all."

So Aristide, out of love for his friend, and out of he knew not what for
his friend's wife, continued to show them the sights of Paris. They went
to the cabarets of Montmartre--the _Ciel_, where one is served by
angels; the _Enfer_, where one is served by red devils in a Tartarean
lighting; the _Neant_, where one has coffins for tables--than all of
which vulgarity has imagined no more joy-killing dreariness, but which
caused Fleurette to grip Aristide's hand tight in scared wonderment and
Batterby to chuckle exceedingly. They went to the Bal Bullier and to
various other balls undreamed of by the tourist, where Fleurette danced
with Aristide, as light as an autumn leaf tossed by the wind, and
Batterby absorbed a startling assortment of alcohols. In a word,
Aristide pr