‘Go on.  And she?’

’"Oh, aren’t we married in real earnest now?” she asked.  I explained that we weren’t.  “You have to have the Notary over from Bayonne, and go to Church.  I know, because that’s how it was when my cousin Elodie was married.  We’re only married in play?” Then she asked if that wasn’t just as good.  “Things one does in play are always so much nicer than real things,” she said.’

‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings!  She had a prophetic soul.’

’Hadn’t she?  I admitted that that was true.  But I added that perhaps when people were grown up and could do exactly as they pleased, it was different,—­perhaps real things would come to be pleasant too.’

‘Have you found them so?’

’I suppose I can’t be quite grown-up, for I’ve never yet had a chance to do exactly as I pleased.’

‘Poor young man.  Go on.’

’And, besides, I reminded her, all the married people we knew were really married, my father and mother, Andre’s father and mother, my cousin Elodie.  Helene’s mother was dead, so her parents didn’t count.  And I argued that we might be sure they found it fun to be really married, or else they wouldn’t keep it up.  “Oh, well, then, I suppose we’ll have to be really married too,” she consented.  “But it seems as though it never could be as nice as this.  If only you weren’t going away!” Whereupon I promised again to come back, if she’d promise to wait for me, and never love anybody else, and never, never, never allow another boy to kiss her.  “Oh, never, never, never,” she assured me.  Then her father called her, and they drove away.’

’And you went to Paris and forgot her.  Why were you false to your engagement?’

’Oh, she had allowed another boy to kiss her.  She had married a German prince.  Besides, I received a good deal of discouragement from my family.  The next day, in the train, I confided our understanding to my mother.  My mother seemed to doubt whether her father would like me as a son-in-law.  I was certain he would; he was awfully good-natured; he had given me two louis as a parting tip.  “But do you think he’ll care to let his daughter marry a bourgeois?” my mother asked.  “A what?” cried I.  “A bourgeois,” said my mother.  “I ain’t a bourgeois,” I retorted indignantly.  “What are you then?” pursued my mother.  I explained that my grandmother had been a countess, and my uncle was a count; so how could I be a bourgeois?  “But what is your father?” my mother asked.  Oh, my father was “only an Englishman.”  But that didn’t make me a bourgeois?  “Yes, it does,” my mother said.  “Just because my father’s English?” “Because he’s a commoner, because he isn’t noble.”  “But then—­then what did you go and marry him for?” I stammered.  “Where would you have been if I hadn’t?” my mother enquired.  That puzzled me for a moment, but then I answered, “Well, if you’d married a Frenchman, a Count or a Duke or something, I shouldn’t have been a bourgeois;” and my mother confessed that that was true enough.  “I don’t care if I am a bourgeois,” I said at last.  “When I’m big I’m going back to Saint-Graal; and if her father won’t let me really marry her, because I’m a bourgeois, then we’ll just go on making believe we’re married."’