'Well, it will be bad if he doesn't.' It was too soon for me to have the idea that it would be bad if he did: that only came later. So I remarked that I had not seen him for so many years that it was very possible I should not know him.' 'Well, I have not seen him for a great many years, but I expect I shall know him all the same.' 'Oh, with you it's different,' I rejoined, smiling at her. 'Hasn't he been back since those days?' 'I don't know what days you mean.' 'When I knew him in Paris--ages ago. He was a pupil of the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He was studying architecture.' 'Well, he is studying it still,' said Grace Mavis. 'Hasn't he learned it yet?' 'I don't know what he has learned. I shall see.' Then she added: 'Architecture is very difficult and he is tremendously thorough.' 'Oh, yes, I remember that. He was an admirable worker. But he must have become quite a foreigner, if it's so many years since he has been at home.' 'Oh, he is not changeable. If he were changeable----' But here my interlocutress paused. I suspect she had been going to say that if he were changeable he would have given her up long ago. After an instant she went on: 'He wouldn't have stuck so to his profession. You can't make much by it.' 'You can't make much?' 'It doesn't make you rich.' 'Oh, of course you have got to practise it--and to practise it long.' 'Yes--so Mr. Porterfield says.' Something in the way she uttered these words made me laugh--they were so serene an implication that the gentleman in question did not live up to his principles. But I checked myself, asking my companion if she expected to remain in Europe long--to live there. 'Well, it will be a good while if it takes me as long to come back as it has taken me to go out.' 'And I think your mother said last night that it was your first visit.' Miss Mavis looked at me a moment. 'Didn't mother talk!' 'It was all very interesting.' She continued to look at me. 'You don't think that.' 'What have I to gain by saying it if I don't?' 'Oh, men have always something to gain.' 'You make me feel a terrible failure, then! I hope at any rate that it gives you pleasure--the idea of seeing foreign lands.' 'Mercy--I should think so.' 'It's a pity our ship is not one of the fast ones, if you are impatient.' She was silent a moment; then she exclaimed, 'Oh, I guess it will be fast enough!'