Near to Fitzgerald stood an elderly man and a girl.  The old fellow was a fine type of manhood; perhaps in the sixties, white-haired, and the ruddy enamel on his cheeks spoke eloquently of sea changes and many angles of the sun.  There was a button in the lapel of his coat, and from this Fitzgerald assumed that he was a naval officer, probably retired.

The girl rested upon the railing, her hands folded, and dreamily her gaze wandered from trophy to trophy; from the sarcophagus to the encircling faces, from one window to another, and again to the porphyry beneath.  And Fitzgerald’s gaze wandered, too.  For the girl’s face was of that mold which invariably draws first the eye of a man, then his intellect, then his heart, and sometimes all three at once.  The face was as lovely as a rose of Taormina.  Dark brown were her eyes, dark brown was her hair.  She was tall and lithe, too, with the subtle hint of the woman.  There were good taste and sense in her garments.  A bunch of Parma violets was pinned against her breast.

“A well-bred girl,” was the grateful spectator’s silent comment.  “No new money there.  I wish they’d send more of them over here.  But it appears that, with few exceptions, only freaks can afford to travel.”

Between Fitzgerald and the girl was a veteran.  He had turned eighty if a day.  His face was powder-blown, an empty sleeve, was folded across his breast, and the medal of the Legion of Honor fell over the Sleeve.  As the girl and her elderly escort, presumably her father, turned about to leave, she unpinned the flowers and offered them impulsively to the aged hero.

“Take these, mon brave,” she said lightly; “you have fought for France.”

The old man was confused and his faded eyes filled.  “For me, mademoiselle?”

“Surely!”

“Thanks, mademoiselle, thanks!  I saw him when they brought him back from St. Helena, and the Old Guard waded out into the Seine.  Those were days.  Thanks, mademoiselle; an old soldier salutes you!” And the time-bent, withered form grew tall.

Fitzgerald cleared his throat, for just then something hard had formed there.  Why, God bless her!  She was the kind of girl who became the mother of soldiers.

With her departure his present interest here began to wane.  He wondered who she might be and what part of his native land she adorned when not gracing European capitals.  Well, this was no time for mooning.  He had arrived from London the day proceeding, and was leaving for Corfu on the morrow, and perforce he must crowd many things into this short grace of time.  He was only moderately fond of Paris as a city; the cafes and restaurants and theaters amused him, to be sure; but he was always hunting for romance here and never finding it.  The Paris of his Dumas and Leloir no longer existed.  In one way or another, the Louvre did not carry him back to the beloved days; he could not rouse his fancy to such