“She recognised him,” returned Henry, “before he entered the Cafe, owing to catching sight of his face through the glass door while he was trying to find the handle. Women on some points have better memories than men. Added to which, when you come to think of it, the game was a bit one-sided. Except that his moustache, maybe, was a little more imposing, and that he wore the clothes of a gentleman in place of those of an able-bodied seaman before the mast, he was to all intents and purposes the same as when they parted six years ago outside the church door; while she had changed from a child in a short muslin frock and a 'flapper,' as I believe they call it, tied up in blue ribbon, to a self-possessed young woman in a frock that might have come out of a Bond Street show window, and a Japanese coiffure, that being then the fashion. “She finished with her French customers, not hurrying herself in the least--that wasn't her way; and then strolling over to her husband, asked him in French what she could have the pleasure of doing for him. His education on board the 'Susan Pride' and others had, I take it, gone back rather than forward. He couldn't understand her, so she translated it for him into broken English, with an accent. He asked her how she knew he was English. She told him it was because Englishmen had such pretty moustaches, and came back with his order, which was rum punch. She kept him waiting about a quarter of an hour before she returned with it. He filled up the time looking into the glass behind him when he thought nobody was observing him. “One American drink, as they used to concoct it in that bar, was generally enough for most of our customers, but he, before he left, contrived to put away three; also contriving, during the same short space of time, to inform 'Mam'sel Marie' that Paris, since he had looked into her eyes, had become the only town worth living in, so far as he was concerned, throughout the whole universe. He had his failings, had Master Tom Sleight, but shyness wasn't one of them. She gave him a smile when he left that would have brought a less impressionable young man than he back again to that Cafe; but for the rest of the day I noticed 'Mam'sel Marie' frowned to herself a good deal, and was quite unusually cynical in her view of things in general. [Illustration: 0183]