that will
vanish at the first experiment."

Mr. Ducksmith emerged from the salon, _Daily Telegraph_ in hand. Mrs.
Ducksmith shot a timid glance at him and the knitting needles clicked
together nervously. But the vacant eyes of the heavy man seemed no more
to note the rose on her bosom than they noted any point of beauty in
landscape or building.

Aristide went away chuckling, highly diverted by the success of his
first effort. He had touched some hidden springs of feeling. Whatever
might happen, at any rate, for the remainder of the tour he would not
have to spend his emotional force in vain attempts to knock sparks out
of a jelly-fish. He noticed with delight that at dinner that evening
Mrs. Ducksmith, still wearing the rose, had modified the rigid sweep
of her hair from the mid-parting. It gave just a wavy hint of
coquetry. He made her a little bow and whispered, "Charming!"
Whereupon she coloured and dropped her eyes. And during the meal,
while Mr. Ducksmith discoursed on bounty-fed sugar, his wife and
Aristide exchanged, across the table, the glances of conspirators.
After dinner he approached her.

"Madame, may I have the privilege of showing you the moon of Touraine?"

She laid down her knitting. "Bartholomew, will you come out?"

He looked at her over his glasses and shook his head.

"What is the good of looking at moonshine? The moon itself I have
already seen."

So Aristide and Mrs. Ducksmith sat by themselves outside the hotel, and
he expounded to her the beauty of moonlight and its intoxicating effect
on folks in love.

"Wouldn't you like," said he, "to be lying on that white burnished cloud
with your beloved kissing your feet?"

"What odd things you think of."

"But wouldn't you?" he insinuated.

Her bosom heaved and swelled on a sigh. She watched the strip of silver
for a while and then murmured a wistful "Yes."

"I can tell you of many odd things," said Aristide. "I can tell you how
flowers sing and what colour there is in the notes of birds. And how a
cornfield laughs, and how the face of a woman who loves can outdazzle
the sun. _Chere madame_," he went on, after a pause, touching her little
plump hand, "you have been hungering for beauty and thirsting for
sympathy all your life. Isn't that so?"

She nodded.

"You have always been misunderstood."

A tear fell. Our rascal saw the glistening drop with peculiar
satisfaction. Poor Mrs. Ducksmith! It was a child's game. _Enfin_,
what woman