The word Paris seemed to possess the power to give her whatever semblance to life she could acquire.
"But sometimes somebody may go with you as a companion—yes?"
"Yes," I assented.
She rose, and crossing the vast hall, stood on the balcony overhanging the sea. When she came back to me her eyes seemed changed. They were larger, deeper, and full of mystery. She was more than ever like the Lady of the Locked Fountain.
"I am very glad you fell to-day into my garden. I think—I—shall like you." She sat down comfortably by me, cross-legged, her long string of amber beads held in her clasped hands. "Tell me, what do you do with the books you are so interested in when you are not trying to dig your grave by climbing the trees?"
"I read them," I answered puzzled.
"Read? Read what?"
"Just read," I answered again. "Don't you read?"
She shook her head.
"Don't you ever read anything?" I exclaimed, for my own life was made up of books. Then the suspicion came to me that perhaps she did not know how. "Can't you read?" I asked.
"I learned when I was a child; and I can still
