little dare-devils who trusted their fate and might never find it out.
After all, that was the way to live--as long as one was allowed. He
turned suddenly with his whimsical smile. "I look out o' window quite a
bit," he explained, "well, because of my aunt Maria." When he sat down
again in the Sheraton chair Mrs. Shirley shifted her story to the plane
of the smile.

"I don't know how late it was when Madame Normand popped her head out of
the balcony door."

"'Who was then surprised? It was the lady,' as dear old Brantome says?"

"It was everybody. The company had gone and Mélanie the _bonne_ was
putting out the candles.

"'Miss Stewart and I have just discovered that we are very nearly
related,' said he.

"'But how delightful,' said Madame, thoroughly annoyed."

"And the other time," Hugh hinted. What he wanted to say was, "So you
prevented it, you kept him here, God bless you!" His natural resilience
had asserted itself. Vistas were opening. The Hugh who accepted life for
what it was worth was again in the ascendant, but he found a second to
call up the other Hugh, whose legal residence was somewhere near the
threshold of consciousness, to take notice. He had always known that
there must have been something in Uncle Hugh's girl.

"That was a few days later, the afternoon before I left Paris. I went
quite suddenly. Somebody was sick at home, and I had the chance to