"Well, old mole, if you had not been as blind as a bat you would have seen that all winter. I was dead to tell you, so you would not make Elise so jealous of you, but mother would not let me. She thought it would not be fair to Elise. I knew if you knew you would be careful——" but Judy could not let Molly finish.
"Careful! Elise jealous of me! Uncle Tom and me! Oh, Molly, Molly, how absurd! Why, Mr. Kinsella has kept close to me to be ready to catch Pierce by the heels and pull him out, in case I should decide to gobble him up. I thought everybody knew that. The only reason he decided to go off on this trip was that I had a heart-to-heart talk with him and told him that he need not have any fear of me, that I was—was—but never mind what I told him. Anyhow, he is not afraid I'll make a meal of his beloved Pierce."
"How about Pierce?" asked Molly. "Is he, too, relieved at his assured safety?"
"That kid!" sniffed Judy. "He is not in the least in love with anything but his art. I fancy it would bore him to death if he thought Uncle Tom and I had had that talk. He likes me just as he would another boy."
Molly felt very happy that the clouds were all clearing away and her friends were behaving as friends should. She went off to her lecture hoping that Mr. Kinsella and Elise would quickly come to an understanding, and glad that she and her beloved Judy were once more on the old confidential terms.
Mr. Kinsella and Elise did come to an understanding and that understanding was perfectly satisfactory to both of them. They spent a wonderful day together, following the trail Judy had taken the day before, the morning at St. Cloud, with luncheon later on at Versailles. But they did not dance with the wedding parties they met, nor did they take the wrong train and go to Chartres instead of back to Paris.
It seemed so marvelous to Mr. Kinsella that this young, handsome, brilliant girl should find anything in him to care for, middle-aged, careworn man that he felt himself to be. On the other hand, Elise was equally astonished that a man of Mr. Kinsella's keen intelligence and experience could put up with a foolish, silly girl like herself. He endeavored to make her understand what a remarkable young woman she really was; and she tried equally hard to explain to him that his age was one of his chief attractions in her eyes, but that his virtues were so numerous it was hard to tell which ones made her love him so much.
At any rate, they came back to Paris with a much better opinion of themselves than they had taken away. Mr. Kinsella looked more than ever like a gray-haired Pierce. He said he had taken a dip in the fountain of eternal youth and never intended to get a day older than he was. Elise's eyes were sparkling and her cheeks all aglow. Her mother could not have complained that she lacked animation now or that her sallow complexion needed steaming.
When they returned to the studio in Rue Brea, they found Mrs. Brown, Molly and Judy trying not to look expectant, but, as Judy said, "ready to pop with curiosity." Elise ran to Mrs. Brown, and throwing her arms around her dear chaperone, hid her blushing face on her shoulder; while Mr. Kinsella, with boyish ingenuousness, said: "Well, what do you think? Elise and I have gone and done it!"
Enthusiastic congratulations followed and no one asked the question: "Done what?"