“Not so very,” said the young man.  “I remember well, now.” (He wished her mother had not been quite such an appalling person, fat and painted.) “It was only last October.  I’d just come to Paris.  It was my first day there, when I picked up the little dog.  Now, on my first day here, you pay me back for what I did then—­as if it needed paying back!—­by making me pick up my money.  That’s quite a coincidence.”

They had moved away from the tables now, and were walking very slowly down the room.  The young man smiled at the girl, as he crushed up the notes and stuffed them into his pocket.  He saw that she was much prettier than he had thought her in Paris, if he had thought of her at all; and her dress of pale pink cloth was charming with the rose hat.  Somehow, he was glad that she was not in white—­with an ermine stole.

“So it is, quite a coincidence, and a pleasant one for me, since I meet again one who was once so kind,” she said.  “Especially it is good to meet a friend—­if I may call you a friend?—­when one is very sad.”

“Of course you may call me a friend,” said he, kindly.  “I’m sorry to hear you are sad.”

“That is why I told you the other meeting seemed a long time ago,” explained the girl.  “I was happy then.  Now, I am breaking my heart, and I do not know what to do.  Oh, I ought not to talk like this, for after all, you are a stranger.  But you are English, or you are American; and men of those countries never misunderstand a woman, even if she is in trouble.  We can feel ourselves safe with them.”

“I’m American,” he answered, “and I’m glad you feel like that.  I wish I could help you in some way.”  He spoke kindly, but not with absolute warmth of sincerity.  The girl saw this, and knew that he did not believe in her as she wished him to believe, as she intended to make him believe.

She looked up at him with sad and eloquent eyes, which softened his heart in spite of himself.  “You can’t help me, thank you,” she said, “except by kind words and kind thoughts.  I think, though, that it would do me good to tell you things, if you really take an interest?”

“Of course I do.”  He was speaking the truth now.  He was human, and she was growing prettier, as she grew more pathetic, every moment.

“And would you advise me a little?  I have nobody else to ask.  My mother and I know no one at Monte Carlo.  Perhaps you would walk with me on the terrace and let me talk?”

“Not on the terrace,” he said, quickly, for he could not bear to meet the sweet ghost of the past in the white dress and ermine stole, as he gave advice to the flesh and blood reality of the present, in the pink frock and roses.  “What about Ciro’s?  Couldn’t we find your mother somewhere, and get her to chaperon us for lunch?  I should think it must be very jolly now, in the Galerie Charles Trois.”

“So it would be; but my poor mother is very ill in her bed,” said the girl.