"But the perfume of the violets--and the lifting of her lashes--and the way she looked at me, and----" [Illustration: But the perfume of the violets and the way she looked at me.] Jack stopped, bent over, and gazed into the smouldering coals of the now dying fire. "Go on, Jack," urged Pitkin in an encouraging tone--they had lived together in the same studio in the Quartier, these two, and knew each other's lives as they did their own pockets,--or each other's, for that matter. "No, I'm not going on--only waste it on you fellows. That's all. Just one of my memories, my boy. But it comes from wet violets, mark you, not from fry-pans, cold bottles, or hot fish," and he glanced at Marny. PART III _With Especial Reference to a Girl in a Steamer Chair._ "Don't be angry, Colonel,"--no mortal man knows why Mac calls me "Colonel,"--"but would you mind leaving that red rose you've got in your button-hole outside in the hall, or some place where I can't smell it? Red roses have a singular effect on me." I had come in earlier than the others this afternoon and had found Mac alone. I looked at Mac in astonishment. Peculiar as he sometimes is, hatred of flowers is not one of his eccentricities. "Why, I thought you loved roses!" "I do--all except red ones." I unpinned the rose from my button-hole and laid it in a glass on the shelf over his wash-basin. "All right; anything to please you, Mac. Now out with it; give me the name of the girl, and tell me why." Mac laughed quietly to himself and settled down in his chair. For some time he did not speak. "Go on; I'm waiting." "Oh, it brings up a memory, that's all, Colonel. You heard what Stirling said about the perfume of violets bringing back to him the little dinner he had with Christine Levoix at the Bellevue overlooking the Seine, didn't you?" "Yes, but he didn't mention the girl's name." "I know; but it was Christine. I remember that hat and the gloves. In my day they were black, not gray, and came up to her shoulders, like Yvette's. The eyes, though, never changed, no matter who sat opposite. Stirling bought a lot of violets that year; so did some of the others in the Quartier, until the Russian carried her off to Moscow," and again Mac laughed softly to himself. "Well, perfumes produce that same effect on me." "Of violets?" I asked, twisting my head to look into Mac's eyes.