Which was easy to say, but hard to do. They tried to confine the conversation to the safe channels of everyday travel, but those channels were tremendously dull and uninteresting. Esther told the little more she had learned of her uncle’s plan for her European trip and Bob listened absently. It seemed to her--and in spite of her good resolutions she felt a pang of disappointment--that he was surprisingly resigned to the parting and long separation. Instead of groaning when she told him she might remain abroad for even two years instead of one, he smiled and agreed that one year’s study was not sufficient to complete her musical education. It was not until he had risen to go that he gave the reason for his complacency. “I haven’t told you that you weren’t the only one who had a plan, have I?” he asked, with a twinkle. “I should have told it at first if you hadn’t washed everything else out of my head with that bucket of cold water about not being sure that you cared a continental for me. I’ve had a surprise up my sleeve for you all the evening. I am going to Paris, myself.” She gasped. “Bob Griffin!” she cried. “What do you mean?” “I mean that I can’t have you climbing up to be a prima donna while I stay here and keep on daubing at two-for-a-cent pictures. No, I’ll be studying to be a Rembrandt. And in the same city. I sail for Paris about as soon as you do. If I dared it would be on the same ship.... Hold on! Let me tell you about it.” It was the idea he had already mentioned, that which had come to him just before their parting on Tuesday evening. The money he had inherited was sufficient to pay his expenses. He had always intended using it for some such purpose. “Of course,” he added, with a rather rueful grin, “there was a time, a little while ago, when I began to hope I--well, you and I--might use some of that money in other ways; but when you said you were going abroad, to leave me biting my brush ends on this side of the pond, I saw a new light. I told grandfather and, of course, there was a rumpus. He gave in, finally, as he usually does, because he is a good old sport and also, I guess, because he saw fighting was no use in this case. I am going, and going pretty soon. I’ll be in Paris when you are and as long as you are; be there waiting for you to make up your mind concerning that matter we mustn’t talk about. We’ll be there together, and waiting together.... Now what do you think of that?” She did not know what to think, still less what to say. And she could not trust herself to say much of anything at the moment. She was conscious of a thrill, a dangerous thrill, of delight. They were not to be separated, after all. He was to be near her during her exile, she would see him often, perhaps almost as often as now. Why-- And, as they stood there in the doorway of the hall, the clock in that hall chimed eleven. “Well, what _do_ you think?” he repeated. She shook her head.