nge;
but he was fascinated by the idea of the contrast between what he
preferred and what he gave up. His life had long been wanting--painfully
wanting--in the element of contrast, and here was a chance to bring it
in. He saw it come in powerfully with Mr. Flack, after Miss Dosson had
proposed they should walk off without their initiator. Her father didn't
favour this suggestion; he said "We want a double good dinner to-day and
Mr. Flack has got to order it." Upon this Delia had asked the visitor
if HE couldn't order--a Frenchman like him; and Francie had interrupted,
before he could answer the question, "Well, ARE you a Frenchman? That's
just the point, ain't it?" Gaston Probert replied that he had no wish
but to be a citizen of HER country, and the elder sister asked him if he
knew many Americans in Paris. He was obliged to confess he knew almost
none, but hastened to add he was eager to go on now he had taken such a
charming start.

"Oh we ain't anything--if you mean that," Delia said. "If you go on
you'll go on beyond us."

"We ain't anything here, my dear, but we're a good deal at home," Mr.
Dosson jocosely interjected.

"I think we're very nice anywhere!" Francie exclaimed; upon which Gaston
Probert declared that they were as delightful as possible. It was in
these amenities that George Flack found them engaged; but there was none
the less a certain eagerness in his greeting of the other guest, as if
he had it in mind to ask him how soon he could give him half an hour.
I hasten to add that with the turn the occasion presently took the
correspondent of the Reverberator dropped the conception of making the
young man "talk" for the benefit of the subscribers to that journal.
They all went out together, and the impulse to pick up something,
usually so irresistible in George Flack's mind, suffered an odd check.
He found himself wanting to handle his fellow visitor in a sense other
than the professional. Mr. Probert talked very little to Francie, but
though Mr. Flack didn't know that on a first occasion he would have
thought this aggressive, even rather brutal, he knew it was for Francie,
and Francie alone, that the fifth member of the party was there. He said
to himself suddenly and in perfect sincerity that it was a mean class
anyway, the people for whom their own country wasn't good enough.
He didn't go so far, however, when they were seated at the admirable
establishment of M. Durand in the Place de la Madeleine,