The great of heart undoubtedly possess this highest quality of the physician,—­if the statement may thus be put backhandedly,—­and Peter Erwin instinctively understood the essential of what was going on within her.  He appeared to take a delight in the fancy she had suggested; that he had brought a portion of the newer world to France.

“Not a piece of the Atlantic coast, certainly,” he replied.  “One of the muddy islands, perhaps, of the Mississippi.”

“All the more representative,” she said.  “You seem to have taken possession of Paris, Peter—­not Paris of you.  You have annexed the seat of the Capets, and brought democracy at last into the Faubourg.”

“Without a Reign of Terror,” he added quizzically.

“If you are not ambassador, what are you?” she asked.  “I have expected at any moment to read in the Figaro that you were President of the United States.”

“I am the American tourist,” he declared, “with Baedeker for my Bible, who desires to be shown everything.  And I have already discovered that the legend of the fabulous wealth of the Indies is still in force here.  There are many who are willing to believe that in spite of my modest appearance—­maybe because of it—­I have sailed over in a galleon filled with gold.  Already I have been approached from every side by confidential gentlemen who announced that they spoke English—­one of them said ’American’—­who have offered to show me many things, and who have betrayed enough interest in me to inquire whether I were married or single.”

Honora laughed.  They were seated in the balcony by this time, and he had the volume of memoirs on his knee, fingering it idly.

“What did you say to them?” she asked.

“I told them I was the proud father of ten children,” he replied.  “That seemed to stagger them, but only for a moment.  They offered to take us all to the Louvre.”

“Peter, you are ridiculous!  But, in spite of your nationality, you don’t look exactly gullible.”

“That is a relief,” he said.  “I had begun to think I ought to leave my address and my watch with the Consul General . . . .”

Of such a nature was the first insidious rupture of that routine she had grown to look upon as changeless for the years to come, of the life she had chosen for its very immutable quality.  Even its pangs of loneliness had acquired a certain sweet taste.  Partly from a fear of a world that had hurt her, partly from fear of herself, she had made her burrow deep, that heat and cold, the changing seasons, and love and hate might be things far removed.  She had sought to remove comparisons, too, from the limits of her vision; to cherish and keep alive, indeed, such regrets as she had, but to make no new ones.