"You are not trying to play a practical joke, I reckon?" he said at last; and then without waiting for a reply, walked over to the office window, where he stood staring out, his hands in his pockets, his back to Delaven, who was eyeing him calmly. Directly, he came back smiling; his moody fit all gone. "And I was idiot enough to disdain that invitation?" he asked; "well, Fitz, I have repented. I am willing to do penance in any agreeable way we can conjure up, and to commence by calling tomorrow, if you can find a way." Delaven found a way. Finding the way out of, or into difficulties was one of his strong points and one he especially delighted in, if it had a flavor of intrigue, and was to serve a friend. Since his mother's death in Paris, several years before, he had made his home in or about the city. He was without near relatives, but had quite a number of connections whose social standing was such that there were few doors he could not find keys to, or a password that was the equivalent. His own frank, ingenuous nature made him quite as many friends as his social and diplomatic connections; so that despite the fact of a not enormous income, and that he meant to belong to the professions some day, and that he was by no means a youth on matrimony bent--with all these drawbacks he was welcomed in a social way to most delightful circles, and when he remarked to the dowager that he would like to bring his friend, the Lieutenant, at an early day, she assured him they would be welcome. She endeavored to make them so in her own characteristic way, when they called, twenty-four hours later, and they spent a delightful twenty minutes with her. She could not converse very freely with the American, because of the difficulties of his French and her English, but their laughter over mistakes really tended to better their acquaintance. He was conscious that her eyes were on him, even while she talked with Delaven, whose mother she had known. He would have been uncomfortable under such surveillance but for the feeling that it was not entirely an unkindly regard, and he had hopes that the impression made was in his favor. Loris Dumaresque arrived as they were about to take their departure, and Lieutenant McVeigh gathered from their greeting that he was a daily visitor--that as god-son he was acting as far as possible in the stead of a real son, and that the dowager depended on him in many ways since his return to Paris. The American realized also that the artist would be called a very handsome man by some people, and that his gaiety and his self confidence would make him especially attractive to women. He felt an impatience with women who liked that sort of impudence. Delaven did not get a civil word from him all the way home. Madame la Marquise--Madame Alain--had not appeared upon the scene at all. CHAPTER V.