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216 can wait for an hour or so on a stand, then get a little twenty-sou fare and start home, and the chances are that if you're very tired and your lamps need filling, and you're not quite sure about one of your envelopes, and the bougie is full of burned oil, and a little grease has got into the clutch and is making it slip, and Sœur Anne Marie is waiting for you to come in and make the omelette, that is just the time that you'll be hailed by three or four American college boys who want to run out to Versailles or Fontainebleau for dinner. And you can't refuse."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because, for one thing, I can't afford to. Besides, they make me homesick. I always have a fight to keep them from digging into their jeans and giving me all the money they've got. Of course, I never let them guess that I'm American, too. Only last week a youngster sat beside me coming in from Chantilly. He offered me a hundred francs for a good-night kiss. I told him that he could have the kiss for nothing if he'd promise to go straight home and go to bed. What do you think he did?"

"I don't like to say," I answered; and maybe my voice was a bit nasty, for somehow or other I wasn't very keen at the thought of this nice little girl being mauled and jollied by a batch of cub collegians.

Rosalie pushed out her lips and chin. "You needn't be afraid," she said. "He thanked me very nicely, and when we got to the Champs Elysées he said: 'I'll claim my forfeit now. Stop at the Carlton.' I was awfully upset, because, you see,