The friend who sits with him enjoying the night breeze and those rare Havanas is an open-faced, middle-aged companion of the city, with whom Maverick has sometimes gone to a _bourgeois_ home near to Montauban, where a wrinkle-faced old Frenchman in velvet skull-cap--the father of his friend--has received him with profound obeisance, brought out for him his best _cru_ of St. Peray, and bored him with long stories of the times of 1798, in which he was a participant. Yet the home-scenes there, with the wrinkled old father and the stately mamma for partners at whist or boston, have been grateful to Maverick, as reminders of other home-scenes long passed out of reach; and he has opened his heart to this son of the house. "Monsieur Papiol," (it is the Alsatian woman who is addressing the friend of Maverick,) "ask, then, why it is Monsieur Frank is going to America." "Ah, Lucille, do you not know, then, there is a certain Puritan belle he goes to look after?" "Pah!" says the Alsatian, "Monsieur is not so young!" Maverick puffs at his cigar thoughtfully,--a thoughtfulness that does not encourage the Alsatian to other speech,--and in a moment more she is gone. "Seriously, Maverick," says Papiol, when they are alone again, "what will you do with this Puritan daughter of yours?" "Keep her from ways of wickedness," said Maverick, without losing his thoughtfulness. "Excellent!" said the friend, laughing; "but you will hardly bring her to this home of yours, then?" "Hardly to this country of yours, Pierre." "Nonsense, Maverick! You will be too proud of her, _mon ami_. I'm sure of that. You'll never keep her cribbed yonder. We shall see you escorting her some day up and down the Prado, and all the fine young fellows hereabout paying court to the _belle Americaine_. My faith! I shall be wishing myself twenty years younger!" Maverick is still very thoughtful. "What is it, my good fellow? Is it--that the family question gives annoyance among your friends yonder?" "On the contrary," says Maverick,--and reaching a file of letters in his cabinet, he lays before his companion that fragment of the Doctor's epistle which had spoken of the rosary, and of his discovery that it had been the gift of the mother, "so near, and he trusted dear a relative." _"Mais, comme il est innocent_, your good old friend there!" "I wish to God, Pierre, I were as innocent as he," said Maverick, and tossed his cigar over the edge of the balcony. * * * * *