e are the only people who
tilt at windmills these days--we and our cousins, the British, who
taught us."

I bowed gayly, and added:

"With your colors to wear, I shall have the honor of breaking a lance
against the biggest windmill in the world."

"You mean the Citadel of Science," she said, smiling.

"And its rock-ribbed respectability," I replied.

She looked at me thoughtfully, rolling and unrolling the scroll in her
hands. Then she sighed, smiled, and brightened, handing me the scroll.

"Read it carefully," she said; "it is an outline of the policy I
suggest that we follow. You will be surprised at some of the
statements. Yet every word is the truth. And, monsieur, your reward
for the devotion you have offered will be no greater than you deserve,
when you find yourself doubly famous for our joint monograph on the
ux. Without your vote in the committee I should have been denied a
hearing, even though I produced proofs to support my theory. I
appreciate that; I do most truly appreciate the courage which prompted
you to defend a woman at the risk of your own ruin. Come to me this
evening at nine. I hold for you in store a surprise and pleasure which
you do not dream of."

"Ah, but I do," I said, slowly, under the spell of her delicate beauty
and enthusiasm.

"How can you?" she said, laughing. "You don't know what awaits you at
nine this evening?"

"You," I said, fascinated.

The color swept her face; she dropped me a deep courtesy.

"At nine, then," she said. "No. 8 Rue d'Alouette."

I bowed, took my hat, gloves, and stick, and attended her to her
carriage below.

Long after the blue-and-black victoria had whirled away down the
crowded quay I stood looking after it, mazed in the web of that
ancient enchantment whose spell fell over the first man in Eden, and
whose sorcery shall not fail till the last man returns his soul.

X

I lunched at my lodgings on the Quai Malthus, and I had but little
appetite, having fed upon such an unexpected variety of emotions
during the morning.

Now, although I was already heels over head in love, I do not believe
that loss of appetite was the result of that alone. I was slowly
beginning to realize what my recent attitude might cost me, not only
in an utter collapse of my scientific career, and the consequent
material ruin which was likely to follow, but in the loss of all my
friends at home. The Zoological Society of Bronx Park and the
Smithsonian Instituti