ountry cage."

"Thinking! That's all I had to do! I spent a lifetime standing on the hill with the woods behind me trying to catch the music of this street, the sound of this very car, and I thought it all out, every bit of it."

"Every bit of what?"

"Life and death and the great hereafter," she said, "principally life. That's why I'm going out to dinner with you instead of going early to bed."

The glare of a lamp silvered her profile and the young curve of her bosom. Somewhere, at some time, Palgrave had knelt humbly, with strange anguish and hunger, at the feet of a girl with just that young proud face and those unawakened eyes. The memory of it was like an echo of an echo.

"Why," said Joan, halting for a moment on her way to the steps of the old hotel, "this looks like a picture postcard of a bit of Paris."

"Yes, on the other side of the Seine, near the Odeon. Our grandfathers imagined that they were very smart when they stayed here. It's one of the few places in town that has atmosphere."

"I like it," said Joan.

The hall was alive with people, laughing and talking, and the walls with the rather bold designs of the posters. A band, which made up in vim and go what it lacked in numbers, was playing a selection from "The Chocolate Soldier." The place was full of the smell of garlic and cigarette smoke and coffee. There was a certain dramatic animation among the waiters, characteristically Latin. Few of the diners wore evening clothes. The walls were refreshingly free from the hideous gold decorations of the average hotel.

Men stared at Joan with undisguised interest and approbation. Her virginity was like the breath of spring in the room. Women looked after Palgrave in the same way. Into that semi-Bohemianism he struck a rather surprising note, like the sudden advent of caviar and champagne upon a table of beer and pickle