"I may be late," she said; "but you will be here when I return." "Yes, mademoiselle." "Without fail?" "Yes, mademoiselle." Marie watched monsieur take his bride's arm as they went out the door, and the thing she whispered to herself had nothing to do with madame at all. "Poor monsieur!" she said. CHAPTER X THE AFFAIR AT MAXIM'S It was all new to Marjory. In the year and a half she had lived in Paris with her aunt she had dined mostly in her room. Such cafés as this she had seen only occasionally from a cab on her way to the opera. As she stood at the entrance to the big room, which sparkled like a diamond beneath a light, she was as dazed as a debutante entering her first ballroom. The head waiter, after one glance at Monte, was bent upon securing the best available table. Here was an American prince, if ever he had seen one. Had monsieur any choice? Decidedly. He desired a quiet table in a corner, not too near the music. Such a table was immediately secured, and as Covington crossed the room with Marjory by his side he was conscious of being more observed than ever he had been when entering the Riche alone. His bandaged arm lent him a touch of distinction, to be sure; but this served only to turn eyes back again to Marjory, as if seeking in her the cause for it. She moved like a princess, with her head well up and her dark eyes brilliant. "All eyes are upon you," he smiled, when he had given his order. "If they are it's very absurd," she returned. Also, if they were, it did not matter. That was the fact she most appreciated. Ever since she had been old enough to observe that men had eyes, it had been her duty to avoid those eyes. That had been especially true in Paris, and still more especially true in the few weeks she had been there alone. Now, with Monte opposite her, she was at liberty to meet men's eyes and study them with interest. There was no danger. It was they who turned away from her--after a glance at Monte. It amused her to watch them turn away; it gave her a new sense of power. But of one thing she was certain: there was not a man in the lot with whom she would have felt comfortable to be here as she felt comfortable with Monte. Monte was having a very pleasant time of it. The thing that surprised him was the way Marjory quickened his zest in old things that had become stale. Here, for instance, she took him back to the days when he had responded with a piquant tingle to the lights and the music and the gay Parisian chatter, to the quick glance of smiling eyes where adventure lurked. He had been content to observe without accepting the challenges, principally because he lived mostly in the sunshine. To-night, in a clean, decent way, he felt again the old tingle. But this time it came from a different source. When Marjory raised her eyes to his, the lights blazed as brilliantly as if a hundred new ones had been lighted; the music mixed with his blood until his thoughts danced.