"That depends on the man who is doing the gallant," returned the young officer, "I have not yet got beyond the point where I expect them all to be pretty." "Faith, Lieutenant, that is because your American girls are all so pretty they spoil you!--and by the same token your mother is the handsomest woman in the room." The tall young fellow glanced across the chattering groups to where the handsomest woman was amusing herself. She certainly was handsome--a blonde with chestnut hair and grey eyes--a very youthful looking mother for the young officer to claim. She met his glance and smiled as he noticed her very courtier-like attendant of the moment, and raised his brows quizzically. "Yes, I feel that I am only a hanger-on to mother since we reached France," he confessed. "My French is of the sort to be exploited only among my intimates, and luckily all my intimates know English." "Anglo-Saxon," corrected Delaven, and Lieutenant McVeigh dropped his hand on his friend's shoulder and laughed. "You wild Irishman!--why not emphasize your prejudices by unearthing the Celtic and expressing yourself in that?" "Sure, if I did I should not call it the Irish language," retorted the man from Dublin. They both used the contested tongue, and were evidently the only ones in the room who did. All about them were the softened syllables of France--so provocative, according to Lord Lytton, of the tender sentiments, if not of the tender passion. "There is Dumaresque, now," remarked Delaven. "We are to see his new picture, you know, at the Marquise de Caron's;--excuse me a moment," and he crossed over to the artist, who had just entered. Kenneth McVeigh stood alone surveying the strange faces about. He had not been in France long enough to be impervious to the atmosphere of novelty in everything seen and heard. Back of him the soft voice of Madame Choudey, the hostess, could be heard. She was frankly gossiping and laughing a little. The name of the Marquise de Caron was mentioned. Delaven had told him of her--an aristocrat and an eccentric--a philanthropist who was now aged. For years herself and her son had been the patrons--the good angels of struggling genius, of art in every form. But the infamous 2d of December had ended all that. He was one of the "provisionally exiled;" he had died in Rome. Madame La Marquise, the dowager Marquise now, was receiving again, said the gossips back of him. The fact was commented on with wonder by Madame Choudey;--with wonder, frank queries, and wild surmises, by the little group around her; for the aged Marquise and her son Alain--dead a year since--had been picturesque figures in their own circle where politics and art, literature and religion, met and crossed swords, or played piquet! And now she was coming back, not only to Paris, but to society; had in fact, arrived, and the card Madame Choudey held in her white dimpled hand announced the first reception at the Caron establishment.