“Why, Miss Rossmore, what are you doing out driving?” he asked.  “You know you and Mrs. Blake promised to dine with me to-night.  I was coming round to the hotel in a few moments.”

Mrs. Blake was a younger sister of Shirley’s mother.  Her husband had died a few years previously, leaving her a small income, and when she had heard of her niece’s contemplated trip to Europe she had decided to come to Paris to meet her and incidentally to chaperone her.  The two women were stopping at the Grand Hotel close by, while Jefferson had found accommodations at the Athenee.

Shirley explained.  Her aunt wanted to go to the dressmaker’s, and she herself was most anxious to go to the Luxembourg Gardens to hear the music.  Would he take her?  Then they could meet Mrs. Blake at the hotel at seven o’clock and all go to dinner.  Was he willing?

Was he?  Jefferson’s face fairly glowed.  He ran back to his table on the terrasse to settle for his Vermouth, astonished the waiter by not stopping to notice the short change he gave him, and rushed back to the carriage.

A dirty little Italian girl, shrewd enough to note the young man’s attention to the younger of the American women, wheedled up to the carriage and thrust a bunch of flowers in Jefferson’s face.

“Achetez des fleurs, monsieur, pour la jolie dame?”

Down went Jefferson’s hand in his pocket and, filling the child’s hand with small silver, he flung the flowers in the carriage.  Then he turned inquiringly to Shirley for instructions so he could direct the cocher.  Mrs. Blake said she would get out here.  Her dressmaker was close by, in the Rue Auber, and she would walk back to the hotel to meet them at seven o’clock.  Jefferson assisted her to alight and escorted her as far as the porte-cochere of the modiste’s, a couple of doors away.  When he returned to the carriage, Shirley had already told the coachman where to go.  He got in and the fiacre started.

“Now,” said Shirley, “tell me what you have been doing with yourself all day.”

Jefferson was busily arranging the faded carriage rug about Shirley, spending more time in the task perhaps than was absolutely necessary, and she had to repeat the question.

“Doing?” he echoed with a smile, “I’ve been doing two things—­ waiting impatiently for seven o’clock and incidentally reading the notices of your book.”

CHAPTER IV

“Tell me, what do the papers say?”

Settling herself comfortably back in the carriage, Shirley questioned Jefferson with eagerness, even anxiety.  She had been impatiently awaiting the arrival of the newspapers from “home,” for so much depended on this first effort.  She knew her book had been praised in some quarters, and her publishers had written her that the sales were bigger every day, but she was curious to learn how it had been received by the reviewers.