“Why,” he cried, “in Paris you are much more liberal in your views than we are.”

She looked at him curiously.

“Yes, we are very Bohemian.”

“I think it is charming,” he declared.

“You see, we shall be in the best of society,” she ventured timidly, with a pretty gesture toward the statues of the dead queens, ranged in stately ranks above the terrace.

He looked at her, delighted, and she brightened at the success of her innocent little pleasantry.

“Indeed,” she smiled, “I shall be well chaperoned, because you see we are under the protection of the gods themselves; look, there are Apollo, and Juno, and Venus, on their pedestals,” counting them on her small gloved fingers, “and Ceres, Hercules, and⁠—but I can’t make out⁠—”