Somewhere a woman was singing from Pagliacci, and I slowly arrived at a consciousness that I had sighed aloud once or twice, not so much sadly, as of longing to see that lady, and that my companion had permitted similar sounds to escape him, but more mournfully.

It was then that I asked him, in earnestness, yet with the manner of making a joke, if he did not think often of some one in North America.
"Do you believe that could be, and I making the disturbance I did in Paris ?" he returned.
"Yes," I told him, "if you are trying to forget her." "I should think it might look more as if I were trying to forget that I wasn't good enough for her and that she knew it!" He spoke in a voice which he would have made full of ease--"off-hand," as they say; but he failed to do so.
"That was the case ?" I pressed him, you see, but smilingly.
"Looks a good deal like it," he replied, smoking much at once.
"So?
But that is good for you, my friend!" "Probably." He paused, smoking still more, and then said, "It's a benefit I could get on just as well without." "She is in North America ?" "No; over here." "Ah! Then we will go where she is.

That will be even better for you! Where is she ?" "I don't know.

She asked me not to follow her.

Somebody else is doing that." The young man's voice was steady, and his face, as usual, showed no emotion, but I should have been an Italian for nothing had I not understood quickly.