at the first dawn of a smile, they danced into sight and became the most noticeable feature of her face. Claire without her dimples would have been another and far less fascinating personality.

“Mother darling, forgive me! Kiss me, chérie—don’t look sad! I have had a good time, and we’ll have a good time yet, if it is in my power to get it for you. Cheer up! Things won’t be as bad as you fear. We won’t allow them to be bad. ... How much does the horrid old bank say that we owe? Three hundred francs. I can pay it out of my own little savings. Does it mean literally that there is nothing more, nothing at all—not a single sou?”

“Oh no. I have some shares. They have been worthless for years, but just lately they have gone up. I was asking Mr Judge about them yesterday. He says I might get between two and three hundred pounds. They were worth a thousand, years ago.”

Claire brightened with the quick relief of youth. Two or three hundred English pounds were a considerable improvement on a debit account. With two or three hundred pounds much might yet be done. Thousands of people had built up great fortunes on smaller foundations. In a vague, indefinite fashion she determined to devote these last pounds to settling herself in some business, which would ensure a speedy and generous return. School teaching was plainly out of the question, since two gentlewomen could not exist on a hundred and ten pounds a year. She must think of something quicker, more lucrative.

All through dinner that evening Claire debated her future vocation as she sat by her mother’s side, halfway down the long dining-table which to English eyes appeared so bare and unattractive, but which was yet supplied with the most appetising of food. Claire’s eyes were accustomed to the lack of pretty detail; she had quite an affection for the Pension which stood for home in her migratory life, and a real love for Madame Dupre, the cheery, kindly, most capable proprietor. Such of the pensionnaires as were not purely birds of passage she regarded as friends rather than acquaintances; the only person in the room to whom she felt any antagonism was Mr Judge himself, but unfortunately he was the one of all others whom she was expected to like best.

As she ate her salad and broke fragments of delicious crusty roll, Claire threw furtive glances across the table at the man who for the last weeks had exercised so disturbing an element in her life. Was it six weeks or two months, since she and her mother had first made his acquaintance at the tennis club at which they spent so many of their afternoons? 

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