se," she replied, which was also the correct and regular answer.

"Suzanne," I said, slowly and passionately.

She turned the sapphire ring on her finger. Presently she tired of
this, so I lifted her passive hand very gently and continued turning
the sapphire ring on her finger, slowly, to harmonize with the cadence
of our unspoken thoughts.

Towards midnight I went home, walking with great care through a new
street in Paris, paved exclusively with rose-colored blocks of air.

XII

At nine o'clock in the evening, July 31, 1900, the International
Congress was to assemble in the great lecture-hall of the Belgian
Scientific Pavilion, which adjourned the Tasmanian Pavilion, to hear
the Countess Suzanne d'Alzette read her paper on the ux.

That morning the Countess and I, with five furniture vans, had
transported the five great incubators to the platform of the
lecture-hall, and had engaged an army of plumbers and gas-fitters to
make the steam-heating connections necessary to maintain in the
incubators a temperature of 100 deg. Fahrenheit.

A heavy green curtain hid the stage from the body of the lecture-hall.
Behind this curtain the five enormous eggs reposed, each in its
incubator.

The Countess Suzanne was excited and calm by turns, her cheeks were
pink, her lips scarlet, her eyes bright as blue planets at midnight.

Without faltering she rehearsed her discourse before me, reading from
her type-written manuscript in a clear voice, in which I could
scarcely discern a tremor. Then we went through the dumb show of
exhibiting the uxen eggs to a frantically applauding audience; she
responded to countless supposititious encores, I leading her out
repeatedly before the green curtain to face the great, damp, darkened
auditorium.

Then, in response to repeated imaginary recalls, she rehearsed the
extemporaneous speech, thanking the distinguished audience for their
patience in listening to an unknown confrere, and confessing her
obligations to me (here I appeared and bowed in self-abasement) for my
faith in her and my aid in securing for her a public hearing before
the most highly educated audience in the world.

After that we retired behind the curtain to sit on an empty box and
eat sandwiches and watch the last lingering plumbers pasting up the
steam connections with a pot of molten lead.

The plumbers were Americans, brought to Paris to make repairs on the
American buildings during the exposition, and we c