cond use. The haze of dust hung over the broad Boulevard St. Michel
like a morning fog over a swamp. Mlle. Fouchette watched the scene for
a few minutes without a word. Both were thinking of something else.

"She'll soon get over it, never fear."

"I suppose so," he said, knowing that she still spoke of Madeleine,
and somewhat bored at her reappearance in the conversation.

"A woman does not go on loving a man who never cares for her,--who
loves another."

"'Loves another,'" he repeated, absently.

"But if Madeleine meets them just now,--oh! look out, monsieur! She's
a tiger!"

He shuddered. He was unable to stand this any longer; he rose
absent-mindedly and, with scant courtesy to the gossipper,
incontinently fled.

"Ah! what a handsome fellow he is! Yet he is certainly a fool about
women. A pig like Madeleine! But, then, all men are fools when it
comes to a woman."

With this bit of philosophy Mlle. Fouchette buried her dainty nose in
the last "ballon." She quenched a rising sigh by the operation. For
some reason she was not quite happy. As she withdrew it her face
suddenly became all animation.

"Ah!" she muttered, "I'd give my last louis now if that melon,
Madeleine, could only see that."

Directly in front of her and not ten feet distant a young man and a
young girl slowly forced a passage through the conflicting currents of
boisterous people. The man was anywhere between twenty-five and
thirty, of supple figure, serious face, and sombre eyes that lighted
up reluctantly at all of this frivolity. It was only when they were
turned upon the sweet young face of the girl at his side that they
took on a glow of inexpressible sweetness.

"Truly!" said Mlle. Fouchette to herself, "but she is something on my
style."

Which is perhaps the highest compliment one woman can pay another. It
meant that her "style" was quite satisfactory,--the right thing. Yet
Mlle. Fouchette really needed some fifty pounds of additional flesh to
get into the same class.

If the rippling laughter, the shining azure of her eyes, the
ever-changing expression of her mobile mouth, and now and then the
rapt look bestowed upon her companion were indications, she certainly
was a happy young woman. Her right hand rested upon his arm, her left
shielded her face from the too fierce onslaughts of confetti. Neither
of them took an active part in the fun. That, however, did not deter
the young men from complimenting her with a continuous show