Being only eighteen, she found her bewilderment rather comic, and began to laugh. "I still don't see that Eugenia isn't just as good as Eugenie!" she said, "I honestly don't know what you're talking about, Eugenia, but if _you_ do, it's all right." "Oh, _I_ do," said the other with conviction. Marise was relieved to see that her small, pretty face, although still flushed from her fit of tears no longer looked distraught. "How strange!" thought Marise. They had never spoken a word to each other ten minutes before, and now they were sitting side by side, hand in hand, like sisters. "I'm awfully glad I came in," she said. "So am I," said Eugenia, "I'd been just crazy to talk to you, but you're so many classes higher than me. Oh, how I _hate_ my class--to be put back with all those young ones! And study such _turribly_ stupid things! And the teacher! Such an old frump. And I'm not having _any_thing of what I want. I'm not getting on a bit. What do I care what France did in India before the English got there? I didn't come to France to learn those sort of things! Marise--please can I call you Marise? Do you suppose I'll _ever, ever_ speak French as you do?" "Why, of course," Marise answered her reasonably, "everybody does, who lives here. Why shouldn't you?" The echo of the famished, burning accent of the other struck now oddly on her ear. She repeated, "Of course you will, if you care to," and went on, "but why should you bother to care so much? What difference does it make? They don't bother themselves to learn English." Eugenia flashed a look of quick astonishment at her. Apparently this was an entirely new idea to her. After an instant's silent consideration of it, she flung it away with the aggrieved cry, "Oh, but you _do_! You _do_!" as though, thought Marise, that incapacitated her from having a valid opinion about it. But this too, like the Eugenie-Eugenia discussion had somehow taken place in another dimension than the one she knew. She was not allowed to ponder the question, however, receiving at this point another impassioned embrace from Eugenia, who cried, "You don't _know_ how glad I am you came! Now it'll be all right. And I've been so miserable. Let's talk! Let's talk!" "I must soon be going to a music-lesson," said Marise, glancing at the little jewel-crusted watch, which hung on a black ribbon around the other girl's neck. Eugenia caught at her despairingly. "Oh, don't go away. I haven't _begun_ yet! I haven't said a _word_!" Then struck by another possibility, "Can't I go with you? We could talk in the cab, and I wouldn't say a word at your lesson. Yes, _do_ let me." "I wasn't going to take a cab," protested Marise, "I don't go round in cabs except when I'm dressed up in the evenings. It would be pretty expensive, ma foi! to take a cab everywhere I went in the daytime. Mostly I walk."