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The prettiest girls in Paris, in bewitching bicycle costumes, linger about the music-stand, losing themselves in the arbors and shrubberies. The kiosks are almost all occupied: charming little Chinese pagodas these–eight-sided, with lattice screens on all sides–screens so tightly woven that no curious idler can see in, and yet so loosely put together that each hidden inmate can see out. Even the trees overhead have a hand in the villany, spreading their leaves thickly, so that the sun itself has a hard time to find out what is going on beneath their branches. All this you become aware of as you enter the big, wide gate.

Of course, being quite alone, with only my battered old umbrella for company, I did not want a whole kiosk to myself, or even half of a giant umbrella. Any quiet corner would do for me, I told the Maitre d’Hotel, who relieved me of my sketch-trap–anywhere out of the rain when it should again break loose, which it was evidently about to do, judging from the appearance of the clouds–anywhere, in fact, where I could eat a filet smothered in mushrooms, and drink a pint of vin ordinaire in peace.

“No, I expected no one.” This in answer to a peculiar lifting of the eyebrows and slight wave of his hand as he drew out a chair in an unoccupied kiosk commanding a view of the grounds. Then, in rather a positive tone, I added:

“Send me a waiter to take my order–orders for one, remember.” I wanted to put a stop to his insinuations at once. Nothing is so annoying when one’s hair is growing gray as being misunderstood–especially by a waiter.

Affairs overhead now took a serious turn. The clouds evidently disapproving of the hilarious goings-on of the sun–poking its head out just as the cloud was raining its prettiest–had, in retaliation, stopped up all the holes the sun could peer through, and had started in to rain harder than ever. The waiters caught the angry frown on the cloud’s face, and took it at its spoken word–it had begun to thunder again–and began piling up the chairs to protect their seats, covering up the serving-tables, and getting every perishable article under shelter. The huge mushroom-umbrellas were collapsed and rushed into the kiosks–some of them into the one where I sat, it being the largest; small tables were turned upside down, and tilted against the tree-trunks, and the storm-curtains of all the little kiosks let down and buttoned tight to the frames. Waiters ran hither and thither, with napkins and aprons over their heads, carrying fresh courses for the several tables or escaping with their empty dishes.

In the midst of this melee a cab dashed up to the next kiosk to mine, the wheels cutting into the soft gravel; the curtains were quickly drawn wide by a half-drowned waiter, and a young man with jet-black hair and an Oriental type of face slipped in between them.

Another carriage now dashed up, following the grooves of the first wheels–not a cab this time, but a perfectly appointed coupe, with two men in livery on the box, and the front windows banked with white chrysanthemums. I could not see her face from where I sat–she was too quick for that–but I saw the point of a tiny shoe as it rested for an instant on the carriage-step and a whirl of lace about a silk stocking. I caught also the movement of four hands–two outstretched from the curtains of the kiosk and two from the door of the coupe.

Of course, if I had been a very inquisitive and very censorious old painter, with a tendency to poke my nose into and criticise other people’s business, I would at once have put two and two together and asked myself innumerable questions. Why, for instance, the charming couple did not arrive at the same moment, and in the same cab? or why they came all the way out to Suresne in the rain, when there were so many cosey little tables at Laurent’s or at the Voisin, on the Rue Cambon, or in the Cafe Anglais on the Boulevard. Whether, too, either one were married, and if so which one, and if so again, what the other fellow and the other woman would do if he or she found it all out; and whether, after all, it was worth the candle when it did all come out, which it was bound to do some day sooner or later. Or I could have indulged in the customary homilies, and decried the tendencies of the times, and said to myself how the world was going to the dogs because of such goings-on; quite forgetting the days when I, too, had the world in a sling, and was whirling it around my head with all the impetuosity and abandon of youth.