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Rh with him, his sensitively coloured face was purple, and he was gasping, breathless—and infuriated.

"Monsieur Bannon," De Morbihan explained disconnectedly—"it is most distressing—I tell him he should not stop in Paris at this season—"

"It is nothing!" the American interposed brusquely between paroxysms.

"But our winter climate, monsieur—it is not fit for those in the prime of health—"

"It is I who am unfit!" Bannon snapped, pressing a handkerchief to his lips—"unfit to live!" he amended venomously.

Lanyard murmured some conventional expression of sympathy. Through it all he was conscious of the regard of the girl. Her soft brown eyes met his candidly, with a look cool in its composure, straightforward in its enquiry, neither bold nor mock-demure. And if they were the first to fall, it was with an effect of curiosity sated, without hint of discomfiture. … And somehow the adventurer felt himself measured, classified, filed away.

Between amusement and pique he continued to stare while the elderly American recovered his breath and De Morbihan jabbered on with unfailing vivacity; and he thought that this closer scrutiny discovered in her face contours suggesting maturity of thought beyond her apparent years—which were somewhat less than the sum of Lanyard's—and with this the suggestion of an elusive, provoking quality of wistful languor, a hint of patient melancholy….

"We are off for a glimpse of Montmartre," De Morbihan