"Oh--but yes. And it is well. It is so that it is most often arranged in France."
"No doubt--but our marriages are not 'arranged' for us in America. We choose for ourselves."
The visitor seemed surprised. She raised her long, high brows and looked from Stainton to Muriel.
"How then," she enquired, "you choose for yourself a man so much older?"
"I say he is _not_ much older, not any older," said Muriel, despising herself for having fallen into such a discussion, yet unable, in an alien language, to disentangle herself.
"But madame is a mere girl," said the visitor, seeking only to be polite.
"And my husband is young also," declared Muriel.
Something in the tone of this repetition convinced the French girl that the subject was not further to be pursued. She essayed another tack.
"And the babies?" she asked. "Is it that you brought with you the babies?"
Muriel's cheeks warmed again, and she looked away.
"We have no children," she responded, shortly.
"No children?" The visitor plainly considered this unbelievable. "You have no little babies? Then, why to marry?"
"But how unhappy, how unfortunate for monsieur! Perhaps soon----"
"We have been married only a short time."
"Ah!" The French girl seemed to rest upon that as the sole reasonable explanation. "Then," she said with a note of encouragement in her tone, "it is not without hope. After a while you will have the babies."
Muriel was angry. She looked to Jim for rescue; but Jim was still leaning over the rail, engrossed in the spectacle presented by the dancers.
"I do not want any children," said Muriel, suddenly.
"No children? You wish no children?" gasped her inquisitor. "You choose to marry, and yet you want no children? But why then did madame marry?"
"For reasons that you cannot understand," she said. "We must go now," she added; and she touched Jim's arm. "Come," she said to him; "let's go, Jim."
"It must be after one o'clock," said Muriel.
"Yes--and we have still a great deal of it to see before daylight, I believe."
"_S'il vous plaît, monsieur_," she said: "_la petite monnaie_."
Stainton had tried to take the extended hand to bid its owner good-night, but he noticed, before she began to speak, that it was turned palm upward.
"My cab-fare," said the visitor in French, and Muriel, vaguely appreciating the fact that here was another custom of the country, translated.