ger, his head
high and the end of his pointed beard sticking joyously up in the air.

We see him one August morning, in the plentitude of his success,
lounging in a wicker chair on the shady lawn of the Hotel de l'Europe.
He wore white buckskin shoes--I begin with these as they were the first
point of his person to attract the notice of the onlooker--lilac silk
socks, a white flannel suit with a zig-zag black stripe, a violet tie
secured by a sapphire and diamond pin, and a rakish panama hat. On his
knees lay the _Matin_; the fingers of his left hand held a fragrant
corona; his right hand was uplifted in a gesture, for he was talking. He
was talking to a couple of ladies who sat near by, one a mild-looking
Englishwoman of fifty, dressed in black, the other, her daughter, a
beautiful girl of twenty-four. That Aristide should fly to feminine
charms, like moth to candle, was a law of his being; that he should lie,
with shriveled wings, at Miss Errington's feet was the obvious result.
Her charms were of the winsome kind to which he was most susceptible.
She had an oval face, a little mouth like crumpled rose petals (so
Aristide himself described it), a complexion the mingling of ivory and
peach blossom (Aristide again), a straight little nose, appealing eyes
of the deepest blue veiled by sweeping lashes and fascinating fluffiness
of dark hair over a pure brow. She had a graceful figure, and the
slender foot below her white pique skirt was at once the envy and
admiration of Aix-les-Bains.

Aristide talked. The ladies listened, with obvious amusement. In the
easy hotel way he had fallen into their acquaintance. As the man of
wealth, the careless player who took five-hundred-louis banks at the
table with the five-louis minimum, and cleared out the punt, he felt it
necessary to explain himself. I am afraid he deviated from the narrow
path of truth.

"What perfect English you speak," Miss Errington remarked, when he had
finished his harangue and had put the corona between his lips. Her voice
was a soft contralto.

"I have mixed much in English society, since I was a child," replied
Aristide, in his grandest manner. "Fortune has made me know many of your
county families and members of Parliament."

Miss Errington laughed. "Our M. P.'s are rather a mixed lot, Monsieur
Pujol."

"To me an English Member of Parliament is a high-bred conservative. I
do not recognize the others," said Aristide.

"Unfortunately we have to recog