"With what pride she replied:
"'I am free here—'
"I dared not question her any further. While we were lunching in the large dining-room at the hotel, she told me quite freely in a few words how she had gained her independence. An old friend of Saint Ismier days,—married in London, had recommended her to Miss Pearson.
"'Miss Pearson?'
"'Yes, Miss Pearson is quite a personage here. Did you not see her at the Embassy? She has a boarding school for girls. But it is not such as they have in France. She takes only twenty-five select pupils in that fine house to which you escorted me last night. It is very expensive—two hundred and forty pounds a year. There are only young girls of the aristocracy there. The best masters in London come to instruct them. They ride and go into society. I was teaching music and French literature. My extreme love of Beethoven and Chateaubriand helped me, saved me. Now I am Miss Pearson's partner and friend. She is as kind as she is clever. You will dine with her this evening.
"'You live together?'
"'No, in England one has a better understanding of liberty than that. She has given me a little suite which has a private entrance. But we frequently invite each other.'
"To end her short confidences, she added laughingly, as she blushed slightly:
"'I am earning a great deal of money. At least for a woman. Would you have thought me capable of it when you came to my father's house to decipher our old charts for your history of Dauphiné? You made fun of my education then, which was quite scattered and broadened only by chance—'
"'I did not laugh at you—'