income, and that he meant to belong to the professions some
day, and that he was by no means a youth on matrimony bent--with all
these drawbacks he was welcomed in a social way to most delightful
circles, and when he remarked to the dowager that he would like to
bring his friend, the Lieutenant, at an early day, she assured him
they would be welcome.

She endeavored to make them so in her own characteristic way, when
they called, twenty-four hours later, and they spent a delightful
twenty minutes with her. She could not converse very freely with the
American, because of the difficulties of his French and her English,
but their laughter over mistakes really tended to better their
acquaintance. He was conscious that her eyes were on him, even while
she talked with Delaven, whose mother she had known. He would have
been uncomfortable under such surveillance but for the feeling that
it was not entirely an unkindly regard, and he had hopes that the
impression made was in his favor.

Loris Dumaresque arrived as they were about to take their departure,
and Lieutenant McVeigh gathered from their greeting that he was a
daily visitor--that as god-son he was acting as far as possible in the
stead of a real son, and that the dowager depended on him in many ways
since his return to Paris.

The American realized also that the artist would be called a very
handsome man by some people, and that his gaiety and his self
confidence would make him especially attractive to women. He felt an
impatience with women who liked that sort of impudence. Delaven did
not get a civil word from him all the way home.

Madame la Marquise--Madame Alain--had not appeared upon the scene at
all.

CHAPTER V.

"But he is not at all bad, this American officer," insisted the
dowager; "such a great, manly fellow, with the deference instinctive,
and eyes that regard you well and kindly. Your imagination has most
certainly led you astray; it could not be that with such a face, and
such a mother, he could be the--horrible! of that story."

"All the better for him," remarked her daughter-in-law. "But I should
not feel at ease with him. He must be some relation, and I should
shrink from all of the name."

"But, Madame McVeigh--so charming!"

"Oh, well; she only has the name by accident, that is, by marriage."

The dowager regarded her with a smile of amusement.

"Shall you always regard marriage as merely an accident?" she
asked. "Some day it wi