on the first etage?” But girls were so foolish—­in their first affair; then it was always love!  The second time they were wiser.  And this maimed warrior and painter was as poor as she.  A compatriot, too; well, perhaps that saved some scandal; one could never know what the Americans were accustomed to do.  The first floor, which had been inclined to be civil to the young teacher, was more so, but less respectful; one or two young men were tentatively familiar until they looked in her gray eyes and remembered the broad shoulders of the painter.  Oddly enough, only Mademoiselle Fifine, of her own landing, exhibited any sympathy with her, and for the first time Helen was frightened.  She did not show it, however, only she changed her lodgings the next day.  But before she left she had a few moments’ conversation with the concierge and an exchange of a word or two with some of her fellow lodgers.  I have already hinted that the young lady had great precision of statement; she had a pretty turn for handling colloquial French and an incisive knowledge of French character.  She left No. 34, Rue de Frivole, working itself into a white rage, but utterly undecided as to her real character.

But all this and much more was presently blown away in the hot breath that swept the boulevards at the outburst of the Franco-German War, and Miss Helen Maynard disappeared from Paris with many of her fellow countrymen.  The excitement reached even a quaint old chateau in Brittany where Major Ostrander was painting.  The woman who was standing by his side as he sat before his easel on the broad terrace observed that he looked disturbed.

“What matters?” she said gently.  “You have progressed so well in your work that you can finish it elsewhere.  I have no great desire to stay in France with a frontier garrisoned by troops while I have a villa in Switzerland where you could still be my guest.  Paris can teach you nothing more, my friend; you have only to create now—­and be famous.”

“I must go to Paris,” he said quietly.  “I have friends—­countrymen—­there, who may want me now.”

“If you mean the young singer of the Rue de Frivole, you have compromised her already.  You can do her no good.”

“Madame!”

The pretty face which he had been familiar with for the past six weeks somehow seemed to change its character.  Under the mask of dazzling skin he fancied he saw the high cheek-bones and square Tartar angle; the brilliant eyes were even brighter than before, but they showed more of the white than he had ever seen in them.

Nevertheless she smiled, with an equally stony revelation of her white teeth, yet said, still gently, “Forgive me if I thought our friendship justified me in being frank,—­perhaps too frank for my own good.”

She stopped as if half expecting an interruption; but as he remained looking wonderingly at her, she bit her lip, and went on:  “You have a great career before you.  Those who help you must do so without entangling you; a chain of roses may be as impeding as lead.  Until you are independent, you—­who may in time compass everything yourself—­will need to be helped.  You know,” she added with a smile, “you have but one arm.”