"Yes, you would. For you are brave; and you owed me this." "I'm ashamed to look you in the face. What must you think of me?" "Think? I'm past thinking. I'm thanking the gods. If I could think at all it would be of myself, that I was a fool not to--and yet, _was_ I a fool? You _were_ a boy then. Even the Contessa----" "Oh, don't! Where can we sit? I must tell you everything--explain everything. I can't wait. In a few minutes Molly and Jack will come." "Good heavens!" "Yes. Didn't you guess? I'm the Perpetual Mushroom,--Mercédès--Roy--Laurence. Oh, Man, Man, how have I dared everything--and most of all this meeting? To fight that duel would have been easier. I think I would never have ventured after all, I would have stayed a Mushroom always, and let the Boy be buried and forgotten; but Molly wouldn't let me." "God bless Molly." I suppose I must have led her to my table, for at this juncture we found ourselves there. "Will Monsieur have dinner served?" breathed a voice out of the hazy unrealities that shut us two in alone together. "Dinner by-and-bye," I heard myself murmuring, as one brushes away a buzzing insect. "Yes,--dinner by-and-bye--for four." "Man," the Girl began; and then was silent. "Little Pal," I answered, and she visibly gathered courage. "You know what a great blow I had, and how it made me very ill," she went on. "It was Molly Randolph who persuaded me that a complete change, and living in the open air--the open air of other countries where no one knew me or my troubles--would cure my heart, and mind, too." (Oh, what a Molly! What might she not do for this sad, bad, mad old world, if she would but set up for a specialist in the mind and heart line!) "She didn't help me make the plan that--I finally carried out. You see, she had to be married, and whisked off to England, when she had half finished my cure. One night when I was lying awake, the thought came to me--of a thing I might do. It fascinated me. It wouldn't let me get away from it. At first, it was only a fantastic dream; but it took shape, and reality, till it was able to plead its own cause and argue its own advantages. A girl is handicapped. She can't have adventures; she must have a chaperon. A boy is free. Besides--I wanted to get away from men. As a boy, I could take Molly's advice, and travel, and be a regular gipsy if I liked.