"Happy chance!" She charmed his ear with a ripple of laughter. "Why, I've exhausted almost every restaurant near the Beaux Arts, that being the most feminine way of pursuing you. The mathematical theory of probability--college learning _does_ prove useful at times--told me the happening of the event, that is, of the event I wanted to happen, was a certainty. For some particular restaurant or other is a habit which everybody contracts; it is, indeed, the first vice one picks up in Paris. And it's a habit that can't be broken. Day after day you revolt--if you're a man, you swear--against the _cuisine_. Things are becoming intolerable. Time was when everything was perfect, when the menu was varied, and always included your favourite dishes; when one could eat the salad without too close an inspection of the under-side of the leaves, and when the wine at eighty centimes a litre didn't turn blue or taste like ink. To-day is, most certainly, the last time you will ever set foot in the place. But the morrow comes, and at _dejeuner_ time your feet bear you there again, and you are so meek about it that you scarcely protest." "That is just my experience," he confessed. "I was sure it would be. That is what enabled me to calculate so infallibly. You see I speak my thoughts quite unashamed. Paris makes one so frightfully immodest." "I'm glad, then, I didn't take it into my head to apply the same method in my search for you. Not only would it have upset your mathematics, but, having no particular landmark, I might have wandered on forever. All the same, I have kept my eyes open. In fact, I was hoping to see you yesterday at _vernissage_." "Were you there?" she exclaimed. "What a silly question!" she added immediately, laughing. "What I meant to say was _I_ was there. But, of course, it was quite impossible to find any one in such a crowd." Paul noticed with pleasure that the conversation on both sides assumed the fact of a positive rendezvous between them. Miss Brooke went on to chatter about the _vernissage_. "I see this morning's _Herald_ puts us down as a low lot. Its reporter must be very _exigeant_. In spite of our presence he insists the models gave the _ton_ to the assembly." "Were there many models present?" asked Paul. "I don't remember seeing any." "There were quite enough of them to be noticeable. Perhaps you thought they were all countesses." "I did have some such idea," he admitted. "I didn't know models dressed like countesses." "They do when their artists take them to _vernissage_. Which affords food for reflection." Paul felt slightly embarrassed and did not answer. "And now," resumed Miss Brooke, contemplating her _coeur a la creme_, "if I may venture to intrude on your reflections, will you please pass me the sugar?" "Is it long since you returned?" he inquired soon. "I was going to ask you before, only the _cervelle_ puzzle arose and somehow I forgot."