And there had intensely come to him during the period of his dressing the next morning after a tardy wakening the idea of taking the child, of--he was certain it could be done--buying the mother off. He would, in short, if he could, legally adopt the Parisian _gamine_ for his own. It would give him a distinct interest, and life was empty for want of one; this, in a manner, however short of perfect, would supply the need of a loving living creature in his environment and would--his thrill at the idea proved to him how lonely he had been--give him companionship and a responsibility of a tender, personal sort. He could make a home at last for a child. Men are more paternal than they are credited with being, and Bulstrode directly foresaw delightful _causeries_ in the future with--(he knew many women)--_with one woman_ whose pretty taste, whose wit and humor, should counsel him in his new rôle. Mrs. Falconer would dress Simone--her hand should be wonderfully in it all. Bulstrode had let his fancy linger over the scheme. Certainly, during the hour in which he spun his fanciful plan, there was not one bar to its execution. Nor did there come to him any hint of its intrinsic sterility, or the idea that it was possibly an excuse for the interweaving of another interest more closely with his life--no idea that he was simply strengthening an old bond, or by means of this little tug pushing a mighty vessel nearer port. He almost happily mused until a nursery grew out of thin air, a child's little garments lay on a chair, and festivities, whose charm is of the most mysterious, illuminated his reverie. Bulstrode, even without the shudder of the climatician, contemplated the rigors of his own country, for a rosy room grew out of his dream, fire-lit and fragrant with fir and holly, and in the centre shone The Tree, whose shiny globes and marvels were reflected till they danced in a child's eyes. There had been an hour earlier the quick, brusque dash of a French thunder-storm, and the cooled air came refreshingly from the garden as Bulstrode stood out on the terrace before going into the noonday breakfast. Prosper, fetching his master's coffee at nine o'clock, had been informed that they were leaving Paris that day and received instructions as to the setting in order of the hôtel before returning it to its proprietor. Where his wanderings were to take him Bulstrode had not as yet made up his mind. It, after all, mattered so very little what a bachelor did with his leisure! It was the height of the season along the seacoast and a dozen places brilliantly beckoned; there were tri-weekly boats to the country, where he should most properly be. "There is," he with recurrent leeway to his inclinations reflected, "always plenty of time to decide what one does not want to do!"