"You sly fellow," Menzies whispered to his friend, after they had been seated a few minutes, "I know why you were so anxious to come here." "Well, wasn't I right," O'Hara, whose eyes had never once left the girl's face, responded. "She's the prettiest I've seen for many a day." "Not bad!" Menzies answered, somewhat critically. "But I don't like her mouth, it's wolfish." O'Hara, however, could see no fault in her; the longer he gazed at her, the deeper and deeper he fell in love; not that there was anything very unusual in that, because O'Hara was no sooner off with one flame than he was on with another; and he averaged at least two or three love cases a year. But to Menzies this latest affair was annoying; he knew that when O'Hara lost his heart he generally lost his head too, and could never talk or think on any topic but the eyes, hair, mouth and finger-nails--for, like most Irishmen, O'Hara had a passion for well-kept, well-formed hands--of his new divinity, and on this occasion he did want O'Hara to remain sane a little longer. It was, then, for this reason chiefly, that Menzies did not get a little excited over the new discovery, too; for he was bound to admit that, in spite of the lupine expression about the mouth, there was some excuse this time for his friend's enthusiasm. The girl was pretty, an almost perfect blonde, with daintily shaped hands, and dressed as only a young Paris beauty can dress, who has money and leisure at her command. Yes, there was excuse; and yet it was the height of folly. Girls mean expenditure in one way or another, and just now neither he nor O'Hara had anything to spend. While he was thinking, however, O'Hara was acting. He offered the girl a cigarette, she smilingly rejected it; but the ice was broken, and the conversation begun. There is no need to go into any particulars as to what followed--it was what always did follow in a case of this description--blind infatuation that invariably ended with a startling abruptness; only in this instance the infatuation was blinder than ever, and the ending, though sudden, was not usual. O'Hara asked the girl to dinner with him that night. She accepted, and he took her out again the following evening. From that moment all reason left him, and he gave himself up to the maddest of mad passions. Menzies saw little of him, but when they did by chance happen to meet it was always the same old tale--Gabrielle! Gabrielle Delacourt. Her star-like eyes, gorgeous hair, and so forth. Then came a night when Menzies, tired of his own company, wandered off to Montmartre, and met a fellow-countryman of his, by name Douglas. "I say, old fellow," the latter remarked, as they lolled over a little marble-topped table and watched the evolutions of a more than usually daring vaudeville artiste, "I say, how about that Irish pal of yours, 'O' something or other. I saw him here the other night with Marie Diblanc." "Marie Diblanc!" Menzies articulated. "I have never heard of her."