“I understand. Realism is merely honesty plus the imagination of the individual.” “A delightful mot, madam——” “Mademoiselle,” she corrected him demurely. “Are you English?” “American.” “Oh. Then may I venture to converse with you in English?” She said it in exquisite English, entirely without accent. “You are English!” he exclaimed under his breath. “No ... I don’t know what I am.... Isn’t it charming out here? What particular view are you painting?” “The Seine, yonder.” She bent daintily over his sketch, holding up the skirts of her ball-gown. “Your sketch isn’t very far advanced, is it?” she inquired seriously. “Not very,” he smiled. They stood there together in silence for a while, 21 looking out over the moonlit river to the misty, tree-covered heights. 21 Through lighted rows of open windows in the elaborate little villa across the lawn came lively music and the distant noise of animated voices. “Do you know,” he ventured smilingly, “that your skirts and slippers are soaking wet?” “I don’t care. Isn’t this June night heavenly?” She glanced across at the lighted house. “It’s so hot and noisy in there; one dances only with discomfort. A distaste for it all sent me out on the terrace. Then I walked on the lawn. Then I beheld you!... Am I interrupting your work, monsieur? I suppose I am.” She looked up at him naïvely. He said something polite. An odd sense of having seen her somewhere possessed him now. From the distant house came the noisy American music of a two-step. With charming grace, still inspecting him out of her dark eyes, the girl began to move her pretty feet in
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