Gratitude and consternation, a most becoming mixture, were in her eyes.  She drew back a little.

“Oh, thank you, but that’s impossible,” she said uncertainly.  “I have friends, too; but they can’t help me.  Nobody can.”

“Well,” I admitted sadly, “I know the rudiments of manners.  I can recognize a conge, but consider me a persistent boor.  Come, Miss Falconer, why mayn’t I call?  Because we are strangers?  If that’s it, you can assure yourself at the embassy that I am perfectly respectable; and you see I don’t eat with my knife or tuck my napkin under my chin or spill my soup.”

Again that warm flush.

“Mr. Bayne!” she exclaimed indignantly.  “Did I need an introduction to speak to you on the ship, to ask unreasonable favors of you, to make people think you a spy?  If you are going to imagine such absurd things, I shall have to—­”

“To consent?  I hoped you might see it that way.”

“Of course,” she pondered aloud, “I may find good news waiting.  If I do, it will change everything.  I could see you once, at least, and let you know.  I really owe you that, I think, when you’ve been so kind to me.”

“Yes,” I agreed bitterly, with a pang of conscience, “I’ve been very kind—­particularly to-night!”

“Well, perhaps to-night you were just a little difficult.”  She was smiling, but I didn’t mind; I rather liked her mockery now.  “Still, even when you thought the worst of me, Mr. Bayne, you kept my secret.  And—­do you really wish to come to see me?”

“I most emphatically do.”

She drew a card from her beaded bag, rummaged vainly for a pencil, ended by accepting mine, and scribbled a brief address.

“Then,” she commanded, handing me the bit of pasteboard, “come to this number at noon to-morrow and ask for me.  And now, since I’m not to go to prison, Mr. Bayne, I believe I am hungry.  This is war bread, I suppose; but it tastes delicious.  And isn’t the saltless butter nice?”

“And here are the chicken and the salad arriving!” I exclaimed hopefully.  “And there never was a French cook yet, however unspeakable otherwise, who failed at those.”

What had come to pass I could not have told; but we were eating celestial viands, and my black butterflies having fled away, a swarm of their gorgeous-tinted kindred were fluttering radiantly over Miss Esme Falconer’s plate and mine.

CHAPTER XI

IN THE RUE ST.-DOMINIQUE

Arriving in Paris at the highly inconvenient hour of 8 A.M., our rapide deposited its breakfastless and grumpy passengers on the platform of the Gare de Lyon, washed its hands of us with the final formality of collecting our tickets, and turned us forth into a gray, foggy morning to seek the food and shelter adapted to our purses and tastes.  Every one, of course, emerged from seclusion only at the ultimate moment; and, far from holding any lengthy conversation with Miss Falconer, I was lucky to stumble upon her in the vestibule, help her descend, find a taxi for her at the exit, and see her smile back at me where I stood hatless as she drove away.