"Ah, then, my idiot," she said, "since it is to be our fortune always to meet of dark nights and in impossible ways, give me your arm."
I laughed. "We may as well make treaty. If you run again, I shall only follow you."
"Then I am again your prisoner?"
"Madam, I again am yours!"
"At least, you improve!" said she. "Then come."
"Shall I not call a calèche?—the night is dark."
"No, no!" hurriedly.
We began a midnight course that took us quite across the old French quarter of Montreal. At last she turned into a small, dark street of modest one-story residences, iron-shuttered, dark and cheerless. Here she paused in front of a narrow iron gate.
"Madam," I said, "you represent to me one of the problems of my life. Why does your taste run to such quarters as these? This might be that same back street in Washington!"
She chuckled to herself, at length laughed aloud. "But wait! If you entered my abode once," she said, "why not again? Come."