She laughed quietly. The drollery of his protestation pleased her and made her gay. Thereafter it became a formula, a sort of ritual. She would ask him if he had thought of her, and he would recite, “When I got up, all the morning, at noon, all the afternoon,” and always she would laugh as if it were very new and very funny and very delightful. “Where do we go?” she said, as he took his place by her side. “To dine with Arlette.” “With Arlette!... Who is thees Arlette?” “My cook,” he said. “At your apartment?” “Yes.” “I do not know....” “Bert and Madeleine are coming, too. You said you wanted to know them.” “Yes.... Yes.... I will know them. And this yo’ng girl, this Madeleine, does your friend love her?” He spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders. “How should I know?” “He has not told you?... He is your friend and he has not told you?” “No.” “Have you told him about me?” “A little; not much.” “_Pourquoi?_” “Mademoiselle Pourquoi!... Oh, because you were none of his business.” “Oh, I do not onderstan’, I do not onderstan’.” She clasped hands together with mock despair, and with the cunningest expression of bafflement on her face. “I do not onderstan’.... It ees ver’ difficult, ver’ difficult.” “Shall we take the Metro or a taxi?” “The Metro, of a certainty. It arrives, does it not? And the taxi—oh, it is very dear.” “You’re a great little economist,” he said, laughingly, but nevertheless wonderingly. American girls had never been so careful to choose the less expensive of two methods. As they were descending into the Metro they came suddenly face to face with Maude Knox, and Kendall felt himself blushing hotly, and was ashamed of himself for it, so he blushed even more hotly than before. He stopped determinedly, and held Andree’s arm. “Miss Knox,” he said, “I want you to meet Mademoiselle—” He hesitated, for he did not know Andree’s family name. This piece of ignorance had never presented itself to him before. She had been Andree to him, and nothing more. She had needed no other name. “I want you to meet Mademoiselle Andree,” he finished, rather defiantly. The girls looked at each other, Miss Knox with a humorous twinkle in her eye, but nevertheless with a glint of keen appraisal; Andree rather timidly, as if she would like to hide behind Kendall as little Arlette had hidden behind her grandmother’s skirts that morning, and peer out big-eyed at this woman of another race. Maude Knox extended her hand. “Delighted,” she said, and smiled. “Mademoiselle is very agreeable,” said Andree, but she did not smile; instead she studied Miss Knox’s face intently and very gravely. “There’s our train,” said Kendall, at a loss how otherwise to proceed with the conversation, and he snatched Andree away before another word could be exchanged. Maude Knox stood looking after them with a smile that had in it a hint of something that was not humor, that mingled curiosity with pique.