All the world was there it seemed to Paul. _Grande dames_ there were, with gorgeous footmen on the box; and elegant little victorias containing wonderfully gowned _demoiselles_. Paul recognized one of the latter as a lady who had caused the disruption of a kingdom. There were less conspicuous carriages, too, whose occupants seemed to be having the best time of all--whole families, there, with father and mother and laughing children. Suppose the lady were somewhere in that wonderful throng of pleasure-seekers? In what fashion would she drive abroad? "God knows," he muttered hoarsely to himself, "who or what she may be. Princess or lady's maid, I must find her." So he rode on through the limitless _Bois_, that wonderful wilderness of green trees and country pleasures, of _fetes_ and promenades. At last they turned into the _Route de Suresnes_, which soon led them to the _Lac Superieur_. There Paul dismissed his _cocher_, for he had a fancy to stroll along the borders of the lake. The banks were alive with boys and girls running about like young savages, to the distraction of their nurses. Paul threaded his way among them contentedly, for he loved children and had all too little opportunity to be with them. He stood for a time and watched with much amusement a game of blind-man's-buff--_colin-maillard_ the little beggars called it, but if the name was different, the play was the same that Paul had known in his own boyhood at Verdayne Place. Many fine ships were sailing along the lake's shore, navigated by brave mariners of eight and ten. Paul had just turned away from watching one spirited race when a scream arrested his attention. At first he saw only an excited group gathered at the lake's edge, and then his eye caught sight of a tell-tale hat, floating on the surface. With a few bounds he was in the water, to emerge soon with a little limp body in his arms. He laid his burden down gently on the pebbly bank and then gave place to a man who pushed his way through the crowd with the brisk professional air a doctor is wont to assume. In a few moments the sturdy _enfant_ breathed again. Paul felt anything but a hero. He had never been wetter--and moreover he had lost his hat. It would be a wonder, too, if any _cocher_ would let him get into his carriage with the water running off him in rivulets. He was standing by the road-side bargaining with one of that tribe and had nearly exhausted his stock of dignified French when he happened to glance over his shoulder as a carriage passed close by him. Beneath a parasol a lady's face stood out clearly from the moving maze around him--her face again. The smile in her eyes made Paul mad. He thrust a twenty-franc note into the hand of the astonished _cocher_, and springing into the cab directed the man to hurry on.