am and
eggs at some little hotel or lunch-counter at night, and outside the
hotel the drummers would be sitting, talking and smoking; and there were
Western men, very tanned and tall and lean, in those big two-gallon hats
and khaki pants and puttees. And there were sunsets, and sand, and
cactus and mountains, and campers and Fords. I can smell the Kansas corn
fields and I can see the Iowa farms and the ugly little raw American
towns, and the big thin American men, and the grain elevators near the
railroad stations, and I know those towns weren't the way towns ought to
look. They were ugly and crude and new. Maybe it wasn't all beautiful,
but gosh! it was real, and growing, and big and alive! Alive!"

Mary Hubbell was crying. There, on the bench along the promenade in the
sunshine at Nice, she was crying.

The boy beside her suddenly rose, uttered a little inarticulate sound,
and left her there on the bench in the sunshine. Vanished, completely,
in the crowd.

For three days the Orson J. Hubbells did not see their favourite gigolo.
If Mary was disturbed she did not look it, though her eye was alert in
the throng. During the three days of their gigolo's absence Mrs. Hubbell
and Mary availed themselves of the professional services of the Italian
gigolo Mazzetti. Mrs. Hubbell said she thought his dancing was, if
anything, more nearly perfect than that What's-his-name, but his manner
wasn't so nice and she didn't like his eyes. Sort of sneaky. Mary said
she thought so, too.

Nevertheless she was undoubtedly affable toward him, and talked (in
French) and laughed and even walked with him, apparently in complete
ignorance of the fact that these things were not done. Mazzetti spoke
frequently of his colleague, Gore, and always in terms of disparagement.
A low fellow. A clumsy dancer. One unworthy of Mary's swanlike grace.
Unfit to receive Orson J. Hubbell's generous fees.

Late one evening, during the mid-week after-dinner dance, Gore appeared
suddenly in the doorway. It was ten o'clock. The Hubbells were dallying
with their after-dinner coffee at one of the small tables about the
dance floor.

Mary, keen-eyed, saw him first. She beckoned Mazzetti who stood in
attendance beside Mrs. Hubbell's chair. She snatched up the wrap that
lay at hand and rose. "It's stifling in here. I'm going out on the
Promenade for a breath of air. Come on." She plucked at Mazzetti's
sleeve and actually propelled him through the crowd and out of