“Funny? Some of them are very base,” said George Flack.

His companion made no answer; she only turned her eyes to right and left, admiring the splendid day and shining city. The great architectural vista was fair: the tall houses, with their polished shop-fronts, their balconies, their signs with accented letters, seemed to make a glitter of gilt and crystal as they rose in the sunny air. The colour of everything was cool and pretty and the sound of everything gay; the sense of a costly spectacle was everywhere. “Well, I like Paris anyway!” Francie exhaled at last with her little harmonising flatness.

“It’s lucky for you, since you’ve got to live here.”

“I haven’t got to; there’s no obligation. We haven’t settled anything about that.”

“Hasn’t that lady settled it for you?”

“Yes, very likely she has,” said Francie placidly enough. “I don’t like her so well as the others.”

“You like the others very much?”

“Of course I do. So would you if they had made so much of you.”

“That one at the studio didn’t make much of me, certainly,” Mr. Flack declared.

“Yes, she’s the most haughty,” Francie allowed.