'Now look here, old girl, you might get by at that costume ball as
Stricken Serbia or Ravaged Belgium, but you better take a well-meant
hint and everlastingly do not try to get over as La Belle France. True,
France has had a lot of things done to her,' you'd say, 'and she may
show a blemish here and there; but still, don't try it unless you wish
to start something with a now friendly ally--even if it is in your own
house. That nation is already pushed to a desperate point, and any little
thing might prove too much--even if you are Mrs. Genevieve May Popper and
have took up the war in a hearty girlish manner.' Yes, sir!"

This, to be sure, was outrageous--that I should hear myself addressing a
strange lady in terms so gross. Besides, I wished again to be present at
the death of my favourite trout. I affected not to have heard. I affected
to be thinking deeply.

It worked, measurably. Once more I scanned the pool's gleaming surface
and felt the cold pricking of spray from the white water that tumbled
from a cleft in the rocks above. Once more I wondered if this, by chance,
might prove a sad but glorious day for a long-elusive trout. Once more I
looked to the fly. Once more I--

"What I never been able to figger out--how can a dame like that fool
herself beyond a certain age? Seams in her face! And not a soul but would
know she got her hair like the United States acquired Louisiana. That
lady's power of belief is enormous. And I bet she couldn't put two and
two together without making a total wreck of the problem. Like fair time
a year ago, when she was down to Red Gap taking up the war. She comes
along Fourth Street in her uniform one morning, fresh from the hands of
this hired accomplice of hers, and meets Cousin Egbert Floud and me where
we'd stopped to talk a minute. She is bubbling with war activity as
usual, but stopped and bubbled at us a bit--kind of hale and girlish, you
might say. We passed the time of day; and, being that I'm a first-class
society liar, I say how young and fresh she looks; and she gets the ball
and bats it right back to Cousin Egbert.

"'You'd never dream,' says she, 'what my funny little mite of a Japanese
maid calls me! You'd really never guess! She calls me Madam Peach
Blossom! Isn't that perfectly absurd, Mr. Floud?'

"And poor Cousin Egbert, instead of giggling in a hearty manner and
saying 'Oh, come now, Mrs. Popper! What's in the least absurd about
that?'--like he was meant to and lik