“Yes! yes!” cried Ste. Marie, impatiently.  And the little Jew could see that he was laboring under some very strong excitement, and he wondered mildly about it, scenting a love-affair.

“Then,” he pursued, “there was a very young man in strange clothes—­a tourist, I should think, like those Americans and English who come in the summer with little red books and sit on the terrace of the Cafe de la Paix.”  He heard his visitor draw a swift, sharp breath at that, but he hurried on before he could be interrupted.  “This young man seemed to be unable to take his eyes from the lady—­and small wonder!  He was very much epris—­very much epris, indeed.  Never have I seen a youth more so.  Ah, it was something to see, that—­a thing to touch the heart!”

“What did the young man look like?” demanded Ste. Marie.

The photographer described the youth as best he could from memory, and he saw his visitor nod once or twice, and at the end he said: 

“Yes, yes; I thought so.  Thank you.”

The Jew did not know what it was the other thought, but he went on: 

“Ah, a thing to touch the heart!  Such devotion as that!  Alas, that the lady should seem so cold to it!  Still, a goddess!  What would you?  A queen among goddesses.  One would not have them laugh and make little jokes—­make eyes at love-sick boys.  No, indeed!” He shook his head rapidly and sighed.

M. Ste. Marie was silent for a little space, but at length he looked up as if he had just remembered something.

“And the third man?” he asked.

“Ah, yes, the third gentleman,” said Bernstein.  “I had forgotten him.  The third gentleman I knew well.  He had often been here.  It was he who brought these friends to me.  He was M. le Capitaine Stewart.  Everybody knows M. le Capitaine Stewart—­everybody in Paris.”

Again he observed that his visitor drew a little, swift, sharp breath, and that he seemed to be laboring under some excitement.

However, Ste. Marie did not question him further, and so he went on to tell the little more he knew of the matter—­how the four people had remained for an hour or more, trying many poses; how they had returned, all but the tall gentleman, three days later to see the proofs and to order certain ones to be printed (the young man paying on the spot in advance), and how the finished prints had been sent to M. le Capitaine Stewart’s address.

When he had finished, his visitor sat for a long time silent, his head bent a little, frowning upon the floor and chafing his hands together over his knees.  But at last he rose rather abruptly.  He said: 

“Thank you very much, indeed.  You have done me a great service.  If ever I can repay it, command me.  Thank you!”

The Jew protested, smiling, that he was still too deeply in debt to M. Ste. Marie, and so, politely wrangling, they reached the door, and with a last expression of gratitude the visitor departed down the stair.  A client came in just then for a sitting, and so the little photographer did not have an opportunity to wonder over the rather odd affair as much as he might have done.  Indeed, in the press of work, it slipped from his mind altogether.