Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/25

Rh or mysterious, if I could n't afford both. But I 'm not a young woman."

"Goodness!" exclaimed the old lady, wrinkling up her eyes to stare at me. "I may be pretty blind, but it can't be make-up."

I laughed. "I mean je suis jeune fille. I 'm not a young woman. I 'm a young girl."

"Dear me, is there any difference?"

"There is in France."

"I 'm not surprised at queer ideas in France, or any other foreign country, where I 've always understood that anything may happen. Why can't everybody be English? It would be so much more simple. But you 're not French, are you?"

"Half of me is."

"And what 's the other half, if I may ask?"

"American. My father was French, my mother American."

"No wonder you don't always feel at home in life, divided up like that!" she chuckled. "It must be so upsetting."

"Everything is upsetting with me lately," I said.

"With me too, if it comes to that—or would be, if it were n't for Beau. What a pity you have n't got a Beau, my dear."

I smiled, because (in the Americanized sense of the word) I had one, and was running away from him as fast as I could. But the thought of Monsieur Charretier as a "beau" made me want to giggle hysterically.

"You say 'was,' when you speak of your father and mother," went on the old lady, with childlike curiosity,