A frown momentarily darkened the cloudless brow of Aristide Pujol. He did not like the Comte de Lussigny---- "With Monsieur de Lussigny," he interposed, "it is a matter of prejudice, not of principle." "And with you?" "The reasoned philosophy of a lifetime, mademoiselle," answered Aristide. He turned to Mrs. Errington. "How long have you known Monsieur de Lussigny, madame?" She looked at her daughter. "It was in Monte Carlo the winter before last, wasn't it, Betty? Since then we have met him frequently in England and Paris. We came across him, just lately, at Trouville. I think he's charming, don't you?" "He's a great gambler," said Aristide. Betty Errington laughed again. "But so are you. So is mamma. So am I, in my poor little way." "We gamble for amusement," said Aristide loftily. "I'm sure I don't," cried Miss Betty, with merry eyes--and she looked adorable--"When I put my despised five-franc piece down on the table I want desperately to win, and when the horrid croupier rakes it up I want to hit him--Oh! I want to hit him hard." "And when you win?" "I'm afraid I don't think of the croupier at all," said Miss Betty. Her mother smiled indulgently and exchanged a glance with Aristide. This pleased him; there was an agreeable little touch of intimacy in it. It confirmed friendly relations with the mother. What were his designs as regards the daughter he did not know. They were not evil, certainly. For all his southern blood, Latin traditions and devil-may-care upbringing, Aristide, though perhaps not reaching our divinely set and therefore unique English standard of morality, was a decent soul; further, partly through his pedagogic sojourn among them, and partly through his childish adoration of the frank, fair-cheeked, northern goddesses talking the quick, clear speech, who passed him by when he was a hunted little devil of a _chasseur_ in the Marseilles café, he had acquired a peculiarly imaginative reverence for English girls. The reverence, indeed, extended to English ladies generally. Owing to the queer circumstances of his life they were the only women of a class above his own, with whom he had associated on terms of equality. He had, then, no dishonorable designs as regards Miss Betty Errington. On the other hand, the thoughts of marriage had as yet not entered his head. You see, a Frenchman and an Englishman or an American, view marriage from entirely different angles. The Anglo-Saxon of honest instincts, attracted towards a pretty girl at once thinks of the possibilities of marriage; if he finds them infinitely remote, he makes romantic love to her in the solitude of his walks abroad or of his sleepless nights, and, in her presence, is as dumb and dismal as a freshly hooked trout. The equally honest Gaul does nothing of the kind. The attraction in itself is a stimulus to adventure. He makes love to her, just because it is the nature of a lusty son of Adam to make love to a pretty daughter of Eve. He lives in the present.