"I know," said Andrew, "but he is a great artist." "And so are you," she retorted. "But as this little man gets all the profit he can out of his littleness--it was _la grosse_ Léonie--the _brune_, number three, you know--ah, but you haven't seen us--anyhow she has been in London and was telling me about him this evening--all that nature has endowed him with he exaggerates--_eh bien!_ Why couldn't you do the same?" The street was badly lit with gas; but still he could see the flash in her dark eyes. He drew himself up and laid both his hands on her thin shoulders. "My little Elodie," said he--and by the dim gaslight she could see the flash of his teeth revealed by his wide smile--"My little Elodie, you have genius. You have given me an idea that may make my fortune. What can I give you in return?" "If you want to show me that you are not ungrateful, you might kiss me," said Elodie. Chapter VI A kiss must mean either very much or very little. There are maidens to whom it signifies a life's consecration. There are men whose blood it fires with burning passion. There are couples of different sex who jointly consider their first kiss a matter of supreme importance, and, the temporary rapture over, at once begin to discuss the possibilities of parental approbation and the ways and means of matrimony. A kiss may be the very devil of a thing leading to two or three dozen honourably born grandchildren, or to suicide, or to celebate addiction to cats, or to eugenic propaganda, or to perpetual crape and the boredom of a community, or to the fate of Abelard, or to the Fall of Troy, or to the proud destiny of a William the Conqueror. I repeat that it is a ticklish thing to go and meddle with it without due consideration. And in some cases consideration only increases the fortuity of its results. Volumes could be written on it. If you think that the kiss exchanged between Andrew and Elodie had any such immediate sentimental or tragical or heroical consequences you are mistaken. Andrew responded with all the grace in the world to the invitation. It was a pleasant and refreshing act. He was grateful for her companionship, her sympathy, and her inspired counsel. She carried off her frank comradeship with such an air of virginal innocence, and at the same time with such unconscious exposure of her half fulfilled womanhood, that he suffered no temptations of an easy conquest. The kiss therefore evoked no baser range of emotion. As his head was whirling with an artist's sudden conception--and, mark you, an artist's conception need no more be a case of parthenogenesis than that of the physical woman--it had no room for the higher and subtler and more romantical idealizations of the owner of the kissed lips. You may put him down for an insensible young egoist. Put him down for what you will. His embrace was but gratefully fraternal.