There could have been no stranger meeting than this between the young Arlésienne, with her blue eyes, and her embarrassed hands, and her gown that all the plage turned to look at, because it was in the fashion of more than yester-year, and the cold, stately leader of the demi-monde, with her air of languid ease, her shimmer of diamonds, and her slow, tired voice, roused to interest for the moment by this singularly sudden and imperative demand upon her good-will and ingenuity. Louise found Gabrielle half buried among the cushions of a great divan, with a yellow-backed novel perched, tent-like, upon her knee. For once, the demi-mondaine was alone, bored to extinction by the blatant ribaldry of Octave Mirbeau. She had fingered the simply-lettered card of her unknown visitor for a full minute, before bidding her valet-de-pied admit her. A whim, a craving for novelty--who knows what? The Open Sesame had been spoken, and now, in the half-light of late afternoon, her caller stood before her. "Be seated," said Gabrielle courteously. "Be seated, Ma--?" "--Demoiselle," replied Louise, complying with the invitation. There was a brief pause. Each woman studied the other curiously. Then Louise began to speak, at first timidly. "You think it strange, no doubt, madame, this visit of mine. Let me be quite candid. I come to ask a favor of you--I, who have no right, save the right of one woman to crave assistance from another. I have a brother"-- "Faith of God!" said Gabrielle, lightly, "so have I. A poor sample, if you will!" Her flippancy seemed suddenly to lend the other fresh courage. She leaned forward eagerly, clasping her gray-gloved hands upon her knee. "But mine," she said, "is but a boy. He has come to Paris, seeking to know the world, and, lately, he has become the friend of Mademoiselle Thaïs de Trémonceau." "Zut!" put in Gabrielle. "You say well that it is but a boy!" "Is there need to tell you," continued Louise, without heeding the sneer, "what this means to me? Is there need to tell you what it means to _him_?" "My faith, no!" said Mademoiselle de Poirier. "It is acquainted with me, that story. The end is not beautiful!" "Tout simplement," said her visitor, "I have come to Paris to bring him back, to show him the folly of his way. But I alone am powerless. You--you who are more admired, more beautiful, more clever than this Mademoiselle de Trémonceau"--(Oh, Louise!)--"you alone can aid me to rescue him." Gabrielle raised her eyebrows slightly, and let her lids droop with an air of unutterable boredom. "Truly, mademoiselle," she drawled, "I neither see in what fashion I can assist you, nor why, in any event, I should concern myself with this affair. If your brother has such taste"-- "Oh, madame, I know I have no right," broke in Louise. "But you, of all women in Paris, alone have the power to win him from her."