d as he
mutely sputtered confetti her petite blonde companion caught her long
skirt aside and kicked his hat off. This "coup de pied" was
administered with such marvellous grace and dexterity that even the
victim joined in the roar of laughter that followed it. A thin smile
spread over her pale face as Jean looked at her.

"La Savatiere,--bravo!" cried a youth.

"C'est le lapin du Luxembourg," said another.

"It is Mademoiselle Fouchette."

"There, monsieur," remarked Fouchette, slyly, "you see I'm getting
known in the quarter."

"I don't wonder," said Jean, laughing.

They found seats beneath the awnings at the Taverne du Pantheon. The
rain of confetti was getting to be a deluge. He asked them what they
would have.

"Un ballon, garcon," said Mlle. Fouchette, promptly.

This designated a small glass of beer, served in a balloon-shaped
glass like a large claret glass.

Madeleine also would take "un ballon," Jean contenting himself with
the usual "bock,"--an ordinary glass of beer.

Each covered the beer with the little saucer, to protect it from the
occasional gust of confetti that even found its way to the extreme
rear of the half a hundred sidewalk sitters.

Mlle. Fouchette had been studying the young man from the corners of
her eyes. She saw him greatly changed. His handsome face betrayed
marks of worry or dissipation,--she decided on the latter. What could
a young man in his enviable position have to worry about? Was it
possible that----

"Monsieur," she began at once, with the air of an ingenue, "they say
you strongly resemble one Lerouge,--that you are often taken one for
the other. Is it so?"

He glanced at her inquiringly, while Madeleine patted the ground with
her foot.

"Have you ever seen Henri Lerouge?" he asked.

"No, never," replied Fouchette.

"Does he look like me, Madeleine?"

"Not much, monsieur," responded that damsel. "Have you seen him,--have
you seen Lerouge lately?"

"No,--no," said he.

"From what I learn," remarked Mlle. Fouchette, with a precision and
nonchalance that defied suspicion, "Monsieur Lerouge is probably off
in some sweet solitude unknown to vulgar eye enjoying his honeymoon."

Madeleine shot one furious glance at the speaker; but not daring to
trust her tongue, she suddenly excused herself and disappeared in the
throng.

Jean saw that she had been cut to the quick, and her abrupt action
served for the moment to dull the pain at his own heart. He conceale