Belinda came away from her session with the examining doctors in a spirit of buoyancy. She had accomplished something worth while, proving to herself as well as to the examination board that she had in her an ability above the ordinary. She very well knew that some of the American women who had offered themselves for the work—and with the very best intentions—had proved to be failures.
As she came down the steps of the Bureau her eyes were bright and her face glowed, flowerlike. Or so thought the young man in the gray outing suit and with the wide American straw hat to shade his freckled face, who chanced just then to be swinging down the avenue.
"Miss Melnotte!"
"Oh, Mr. Sanderson! So you have reached Paris," she said demurely.
"Well put. Came pretty near not getting here at all. You and your aunt had it pretty soft, getting those reservations—believe me. My! you look fine."
"Don't make me blush, Mr. Sanderson," she begged, smiling. Who could help smiling when this boyish young man was looking with such open admiration into one's face? "And this is such a public place," she added.
"Say," he said, seizing an opening that Belinda had no intention of giving him, "it is public here! And warm, too! There's one of the jolliest little cafés yonder. I used to patronize it when I was over here before. They serve a cold and temperate drink almost as good as you can get in New York."
"You tempt me," confessed Belinda frankly.
When she had left this young man at the rail of the Belle o' Perth it was with the intention of being coolly polite to him—that was all—if they met again. But it was thirst (she had answered questions for two hours, remember!) that led to her impulsive yielding.
She determined to give Frank Sanderson no opportunity for an extended tête-à-tête. But her recent success made her desire a confidant of her own kind and age. In a minute she was volubly telling the young man all about it.