A month later the three sat in the _salle-a-manger_ of the Elysee Palace Hotel, by a window that commanded a view of the Arc de Triomphe, and many things had happened. Among them was the surprising discovery by the young man, that while few eyes seemed concerned with him, many turned toward Anne, and having turned, lingered. Only last night they had been to a dance, and Anne had been so occupied with uniforms that she had found no time to waltz with him--though he was sure that he danced circles about these stiff-kneed gentry with petty titles. Now over the _petit dejeuner_ he took his young and inconsiderate cousin to task. "Last night, Anne, I camped on your trail all evening, and you couldn't manage to slip me in one dance. Nothing would do but goggling Britishers and smirking frog-eaters. I'm getting jolly well fed up with these foreigners." Anne lifted her brows, but her eyes sparkled mischief. "Oh, Morgan, I can dance with you any time," she assured him. "You're just kin-folks. Is it because you're 'jolly well fed up' with foreigners that you like to ape English slang?" The young man blushed hotly, but he chose to ignore the question with which she had capped her response. Inasmuch as it was a fair hit, he had need to ignore it, but his eyes snapped with furious indignation. "Anne, I don't understand you," he announced in a carefully schooled voice. "You can play with absurd little dignitaries, or with mountain illiterates--anything abnormal--but for your own blood--" He paused there a moment, searching his abundant and sophomoric vocabulary for the exact combination of withering words; and, while he hesitated, she interrupted in a tone which was both quiet and ominous: "Let's take up one thing at a time, Morgan. Just who is the illiterate in the mountains?" "You know as well as I do--Boone Wellver." "Boone Wellver. I thought so. At all events, he's a man, even if he's not quite twenty-one yet." "A man: that is to say, a specimen of the _genus homo_. So is the fellow that brought in the eggs just now. So is the chap that drives the taxi." The young aristocrat shrugged his shoulders and snapped his fingers in excellent imitation of Gallic expressiveness; then as Anne's twinkle reminded him of his being "jolly well fed up with foreigners," the change in his tone became as abrupt as the break in a boy's altering voice, and he added: "The point is that he's hardly a gentleman. I commend his ambition--but there's something in birth as well. Unless you attach some importance to the elegances and nuances of life, you are only a member of the mob." "The elegances of life--as, for instance"--the dancing sparkle stole mischievously back into the blue eyes and the voice took on a purring softness--"as, for instance, the handling of the small sword--or fencing foil?"