"For all that," insisted Ste. Marie, "you look classical. You look like some lady one reads about in Greek poems--Helen or Iphigenia or Medea or somebody."
"Helen had yellow hair, hadn't she?" objected Mlle. O'Hara. "I should think I probably look more like Medea--Medea in Colchis before Jason--"
She seemed suddenly to realize that she had hit upon an unfortunate example, for she stopped in the middle of her sentence and a wave of color swept up over her throat and face.
For a moment Ste. Marie did not understand, then he gave a low exclamation, for Medea certainly had been an unhappy name. He remembered something that Richard Hartley had said about that lady a long time before. He made another mistake, for to lessen the moment's embarrassment he gave speech to the first thought which entered his mind. He said:
"Some one once remarked that you look like the young Juno--before marriage. I expect it's true, too."
She turned upon him swiftly.
"Who said that?" she demanded. "Who has ever talked to you about me?"
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I seem to be singularly stupid this morning. A mild lunacy. You must forgive me, if you can. To tell you what you ask would be to enter upon forbidden ground, and I mustn't do that."
"Still, I should like to know," said the girl, watching him with sombre eyes.
"Well, then," said he, "it was a little Jewish photographer in the Boulevard de la Madeleine."