“One mus’ theenk not about the sad theengs,” said Madeleine, sententiously. “One mus’ be happy. That ees best. Me—I take what comes.... See, I am ver’ ol’. _Oui...._ I am twenty-four. So ol’ am I that no man ever want to marry me.... _Tiens!_ I am _passée_. But still I laugh.... I love Monsieur Bert, and I am happy. One day Monsieur Bert love me no more....” She shrugged her shoulders. “Then I am sad for leetle w’ile.... But another yo’ng man he will love me, perhaps. It ees so. What would you?... If one does not love and is not loved, then there is no happiness, _n’est-ce pas_?...” Andree nodded. “When there is no love it is terrible,” she said. Bert laughed and looked at Kendall. “Aha!” he said. “But, mademoiselle, Ken says you and he do not love each other—that you are just _camarades_....” “It was so,” she said, “but now”—she looked at Kendall gravely—“it is so no longer. No.... We love.” “I said to you,” Madeleine addressed Kendall, “that French girls are not cold. Did I not?” “But—” Kendall began to expostulate and to explain. But Madeleine would have none of it. “You are ver’ _sérieux_, monsieur. Doubtless you are also _un religieux_!” “_Religieux?_ What is that?” “She means in English a monk,” said Andree, her eyes twinkling. “To wear a brown robe—_oui!_—and also bare feet and sandals.” “It must be.” Madeleine laughed delightedly. “For heem to look at a yo’ng girl ees a sin.... See!... See!... He makes to blush. Regard his ear!...” Andree laughed quietly, meantime studying Kendall’s face with kindly, twinkling eye. She did not deride him, but one could see that she loved to tease him—this incomprehensible foreigner who was so _drôle_! Kendall laughed, too, a bit ruefully, but while he laughed he was thinking, fumbling for Madeleine’s point of view. It was clear to him that the man who was not eager for love could be no man at all—but a monk. It was the only possible explanation. Love was for men and women; continence was for monks. Well, then? To love might be a sin for a monk, but even on this point she doubtless was lenient; for a man not to love was a sin. He was not realizing his duty to achieve happiness. Love was love. It was good. It carried no burden of evil. “The good God—He make the yo’ng man and the yo’ng girl, and He tell them to love.... It is true. Then one must obey the good God,” she said, seriously. Here was rather a new religion to Kendall, but, somehow, it did not seem absurd, nor did her utterance of it touch upon the sacrilegious. She made the statement simply, out of her heart, with simple belief.... He turned to Andree. “Is that what you think?” he asked. “Of a certainty—or why did the good God create men and women and love?... I theenk God is happy when He sees a yo’ng man and a yo’ng girl who love each other much.” “Some philosophy!” said Bert. “I’m for it.” “But the love—it ees _nécessaire_....”