ming girl left to take
care of herself, and entirely unfitted for the task; yet she seemed
happy and self-confident, and he had no right, even if he wished, to
disturb her mind. He was going away without another word after the
good-bye, but on second thoughts felt that he might ask if she had
friends in Paris.

"Not exactly friends, but people who will look after me, and be kind,
I'm sure," she answered. "Thank you for taking an interest. Will you
tell the man to go to 278A Rue Washington, and the other cab to follow?"

Stephen obeyed, and as she drove away the girl looked back, smiling at
him her sweet and childlike smile.

III

Stephen had meant to stop only one day in Paris, and travel at night to
Marseilles, where he would have twelve or fifteen hours to wait before
the sailing of the ship on which he had engaged a cabin. But glancing
over a French paper while he breakfasted at the Westminster, he saw that
a slight accident had happened to the boat during a storm on her return
voyage from Algiers, and that she would be delayed three days for
repairs. This news made Stephen decide to remain in Paris for those
days, rather than go on and wait at Marseilles, or take another ship. He
did not want to see any one he knew, but he thought it would be pleasant
to spend some hours picture-gazing at the Louvre, and doing a few other
things which one ought to do in Paris, and seldom does.

That night he went to bed early and slept better than he had slept for
weeks. The next day he almost enjoyed, and when evening came, felt
desultory, even light-hearted.

Dining at his hotel, he overheard the people at the next table say they
were going to the Folies Bergeres to see Victoria Ray dance, and
suddenly Stephen made up his mind that he would go there too: for if
life had been running its usual course with him, he would certainly have
gone to see Victoria Ray in London. She had danced lately at the Palace
Theatre for a month or six weeks, and absorbed as he had been in his own
affairs, he had heard enough talk about this new dancer to know that she
had made what is called a "sensation."

The people at the next table were telling each other that Victoria Ray's
Paris engagement was only for three nights, something special, with
huge pay, and that there was a "regular scramble" for seats, as the girl
had been such a success in New York and London. The speakers, who were
English and provincial, had already taken places,