decided results. He was
intelligent without being intellectual, had a very clear appreciation
of the advantages of being born a McVeigh, proud and jealous where
family honor was concerned, a bit of an autocrat through being master
over extensive tracts of land and slaves by the dozen, many of them
the descendents of Africans bought into the family from New England
traders four generations before.

Such was the personality of the young American as he appeared that day
at Madame Choudey's; and he looked like one of the pictured Norse sea
kings as he towered, sallow and bronzed, back of the vivacious
Frenchmen and their neighbors of the Latin races.

_The_ solo of the musicale had just ended. People were thronged about
the artiste, and others were congratulating Madame Choudey on her
absolute success in assembling talent.

"All celebrities, my lad," remarked Fitzgerald Delaven as he looked
around. The Delavens and the McVeighs had in time long past some
far-out relationship, and on the strength of it the two young men,
meeting thus in a foreign country, became at once friends and
brothers;--"all celebrities and no one so insignificant as ourselves
in sight. Well, now!--when one has to do the gallant to an ugly woman
it is a compensation to know she is wondrous wise."

"That depends on the man who is doing the gallant," returned the young
officer, "I have not yet got beyond the point where I expect them all
to be pretty."

"Faith, Lieutenant, that is because your American girls are all so
pretty they spoil you!--and by the same token your mother is the
handsomest woman in the room."

The tall young fellow glanced across the chattering groups to where
the handsomest woman was amusing herself.

She certainly was handsome--a blonde with chestnut hair and grey
eyes--a very youthful looking mother for the young officer to claim.
She met his glance and smiled as he noticed her very courtier-like
attendant of the moment, and raised his brows quizzically.

"Yes, I feel that I am only a hanger-on to mother since we reached
France," he confessed. "My French is of the sort to be exploited only
among my intimates, and luckily all my intimates know English."

"Anglo-Saxon," corrected Delaven, and Lieutenant McVeigh dropped his
hand on his friend's shoulder and laughed.

"You wild Irishman!--why not emphasize your prejudices by unearthing
the Celtic and expressing yourself in that?"

"Sure, if I did I should not call it the