One night I went to hear Faust.  I got into my seat just as the lights went down for the first act.  At the end of the act I noticed that my neighbor on the left was a young girl.  I cannot describe her either as to feature, or color of her hair, or of her eyes; she was so young, so fair, so ethereal, that I felt to stare at her would be a violation; yet I was distinctly conscious of her beauty.  During the intermission she spoke English in a low voice to a gentleman and a lady who sat in the seats to her left, addressing them as father and mother.  I held my program as though studying it, but listened to catch every sound of her voice.  Her observations on the performance and the audience were so fresh and naive as to be almost amusing.  I gathered that she was just out of school, and that this was her first trip to Paris.  I occasionally stole a glance at her, and each time I did so my heart leaped into my throat.  Once I glanced beyond to the gentleman who sat next to her.  My glance immediately turned into a stare.  Yes, there he was, unmistakably, my father! looking hardly a day older than when I had seen him some ten years before.  What a strange coincidence!  What should I say to him?  What would he say to me?  Before I had recovered from my first surprise, there came another shock in the realization that the beautiful, tender girl at my side was my sister.  Then all the springs of affection in my heart, stopped since my mother’s death, burst out in fresh and terrible torrents, and I could have fallen at her feet and worshiped her.  They were singing the second act, but I did not hear the music.  Slowly the desolate loneliness of my position became clear to me.  I knew that I could not speak, but I would have given a part of my life to touch her hand with mine and call her “sister.”  I sat through the opera until I could stand it no longer.  I felt that I was suffocating.  Valentine’s love seemed like mockery, and I felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to rise up and scream to the audience:  “Here, here in your very midst, is a tragedy, a real tragedy!” This impulse grew so strong that I became afraid of myself, and in the darkness of one of the scenes I stumbled out of the theatre.  I walked aimlessly about for an hour or so, my feelings divided between a desire to weep and a desire to curse.  I finally took a cab and went from cafe to cafe, and for one of the very few times in my life drank myself into a stupor.

It was unwelcome news for me when my benefactor—­I could not think of him as employer—­informed me that he was at last tired of Paris.  This news gave me, I think, a passing doubt as to his sanity.  I had enjoyed life in Paris, and, taking all things into consideration, enjoyed it wholesomely.  One thing which greatly contributed to my enjoyment was the fact that I was an American.  Americans are immensely popular in Paris; and this is not due solely to the fact that they spend lots of money there, for they spend just as much or more in London, and in