"Yes. Didn't you guess? I'm the Perpetual Mushroom,—Mercédès—Roy—Laurence. Oh, Man, Man, how have I dared everything—and most of all this meeting? To fight that duel would have been easier. I think I would never have ventured after all, I would have stayed a Mushroom always, and let the Boy be buried and forgotten; but Molly wouldn't let me."
"God bless Molly."
I suppose I must have led her to my table, for at this juncture we found ourselves there.
"Will Monsieur have dinner served?" breathed a voice out of the hazy unrealities that shut us two in alone together.
"Dinner by-and-bye," I heard myself murmuring, as one brushes away a buzzing insect. "Yes,—dinner by-and-bye—for four."
"Man," the Girl began; and then was silent.
"Little Pal," I answered, and she visibly gathered courage.
"You know what a great blow I had, and how it made me very ill," she went on. "It was Molly Randolph who persuaded me that a complete change, and living in the open air—the open air of other countries where no one knew me or my troubles—would cure my heart, and mind, too."
(Oh, what a Molly! What might she not do for this sad, bad, mad old world, if she would but set up for a specialist in the mind and heart line!)
"She didn't help me make the plan that—I finally carried out. You see, she had to be married, and whisked off to England, when she had half finished my cure. One night when I was lying awake, the thought came to me—of a thing I might do. It fascinated me. It wouldn't let me get away from it. At first, it was only a fantastic dream; but it took shape, and reality, till it was able to plead its own cause and argue its own advantages. A girl is handicapped. She can't have adventures; she must have a chaperon. A boy is free. Besides—I wanted to get away from men. As a boy, I could take Molly's advice, and travel, and be a regular gipsy if I liked.