“Still, Miss Falconer, what does all that amount to? Any man would have helped you, wouldn’t he? A nice sort of fellow I should have been to do any less! Whereas for a girl like you I ought to have accomplished miracles. I ought to have made the sun stop moving, or got you the stars to play with, or whisked the moon out of the skies.” She was laughing again. “Dear me!” she exclaimed. “What fervor! Can this be my Mr. Bayne, the Mr. Bayne of our adventure, who never turned a hair no matter what mad things happened, and who was always so correct and conventional and so immaculately dressed, and so--” “Stodgy! Say it!” I cried with utter recklessness. “I know I was; Dunny told me so that evening at the St. Ives. Have as many cracks at me as you like. I was getting fat; I was beginning to think that the most important thing in the universe was dinner. Well, I’m not stodgy any longer, Esme Falconer; you’ve reformed me. But of all the men in all the ages who were ever desperately, consumedly, imbecilely in love--” In the distance two figures were strolling toward the blue car, the duke and the duchess. When they reached it, the Firefly cast a glance in our direction and sounded a warning, most unwelcome honk upon the horn. They were going, stony-hearted creatures that they were! They were taking Esme back to Paris. At the thought I abandoned my last pretense at self-command. “Esme, dearest,” I implored, “do you think you could put up with me? Could you marry me when I’ve done my part over here--or even sooner--right away? A dozen better men may love you, but mine is a special brand of love--unique, incomparable! Are you going to have me--or shall I jump into the lake?” The sunset light was in her hair and in the gray, starry eyes she turned to me--those eyes that, because their lashes were so long and crinkled so maddeningly, were only half revealed. Her lips curved in a fleeting smile. “Oh, you dear, blind, silly man! Do you think any girl could help loving you--after all that has happened to you and me?” she whispered. Then I caught her to me; and despite my crutches and my bandaged head and that atrocious horn in the distance honking the signal for our parting, I was the happiest being in France--or in the world. “I knew all along it was a dream, and it is! Such things don’t really happen. No such luck!” I cried. End of Project Gutenberg’s The Firefly Of France, by Marion Polk Angellotti