“Yes; he talked to me like a father and I laughed at him like a sister. It actually grieved him when I sometimes went out alone. You see, I couldn’t always make Aunt Madeleine go with me. It worried him that I didn’t like his clothes. They simply didn’t fit and I said so. Then he patiently outlined his theory that it was bad art to have the clothes follow the figure. The American, he thought, dressed too timidly. The effect of the American’s clothes was too sweet. ‘A man should look superior to his clothes,’ he maintained. ‘And so,’ I said, ‘you have inferior clothes. How can a man better indicate his superiority to his clothes, how can he better dominate them, than by making them fit him?’ a remark which seemed to convince him that I was hopeless. At all events, he confessed that he’d never before had a girl find fault with his clothes.” “I can fancy his being cut up about it. Do you do that sort of thing often?” “If you mean find fault with a man’s clothes, no; if you mean tease a man for being too serious, yes.” “I see; you are serious only when the man isn’t. Tell me: how do you find men in the average,—too serious?” “At the wrong time—yes.” “When you are older, my dear, you will find them less serious.” “Which will prove what I say, that they are serious at the wrong time. Why should they be serious with me?” “To be candid, it is all I can do to remain flippant enough.” “That is brutal.” [Illustration] “You inspire me with the most serious thoughts.” “That sounds like the charming curé I met in Provence. We had a delightful time at a country house, a romantic old vine-covered place where everybody you met was a character out of Balzac—when he is nice—or out of Daudet anywhere. Of course there had to be a curé, and he struck me like some book curé brought up to date. My, but he was handsome! with a romantic splash of gray at the temples. Why, a woman would tell her age to such a confessor! He knew a great deal about America. What he didn’t know he wanted me to tell him.” “I hope you completed his knowledge.” “He asked me if all American girls knew so much. I said that most of them knew much more; that I was an ignoramus who had been educated in three countries; who learned things to please her aunt and forgot them to please her father. It was funny to see how puzzled he was. First he was amiably gallant with me. Then he grew interrogatory, then sage. ‘My child,’ he said (it sounded just like a book), ‘you seem to have anticipated life.’ What do you suppose he was driving at? Then he went on, with a sort of grieved look, ‘You know too much.’ ‘And is this my reward,’ I demanded, ‘for being so good and answering all your questions?’ He laughed then, showing the loveliest teeth you ever saw. ‘I did not expect such answers,’ he said. When I told him afterward that we were going to Monte Carlo and then to the Grand Prix (papa was with us), he looked at me as if he was wondering what I would do with them.”