“Mel-odie!” said the French lady daintily. “It is a pretty name. Is that the name of your fiancée?”
“No, madam! I have never seen the lady—but I hope to, some day!”
The Frenchwoman smiled and made no comment, puzzled by this latest manifestation of the lunatic American.
After dinner they strolled through the ancient park of St. Cloud to the river, and took a bateau mouche for Paris. Mme. Vernon seemed to understand all the pleasant little ways of enjoying life. It was a warm, starry night. The French lady sat close to Brainard, and looked up tenderly into his eyes, but though his lips were wreathed in smiles, and his eyes were bright, he did not seem to comprehend what such opportunities were made for.
“Not even took my hand once!” she murmured to herself with a sigh, as she mounted the stairs to her apartment alone. “What are these Americans made of? To drink to the name of an unknown, and spend their dollars like sous. And always business!”
For when she had suggested an excursion for the morrow, the young man had excused himself on the plea of “my business.”
“Always business!” she murmured.
But the lady did Brainard an injustice. He was thinking little of business. If she had but known it, he was in love, and dreaming—in love with life, and dreaming of the wonderful mystery of Krutzmacht and of the still more mysterious Melody!
At his hotel there was a dispatch from the Schneider Brothers, appointing a meeting at a hotel in The Hague for the following evening.