The brows puckered up again. Her father would never give it a second thought, he would never for an instant imagine there was any ulterior motive for what she had done. How could he--when the real reason was so utterly absurd, ridiculous and unheard of! Fancy! What would that select and ultra-exclusive set in Paris say? What if it ever came to the ears of New York! Myrna Bliss to bury herself alive in a little Mediterranean village that was probably not even on the map, and all at a glance from the eyes of a--fisherman! They wouldn't believe it. Who would believe it! It was unimaginable!
Dainty little fingers reached up and drummed with their pink tips on the window pane; the pucker became more pronounced. Well, she _had_ done it, nevertheless. And why was it so absurd, so ridiculous, so impossible after all? She would do exactly the same thing over again without an instant's hesitation. It was quite true the man was a fisherman--but he did not _look_ like a fisherman. He was magnificent! It was not ridiculous at all--it was piquantly delightful. Neither was it so absurdly impossible--if she did not stay in Bernay-sur-Mer, it would only be to choose some other place equally as tiresome--and without even a "fisherman" to compensate for it. What a face the man had! It was not merely handsome, it was--well, it was the prototype of what the artist coterie that buzzed around her father day and night was forever attempting to give expression to, but which, until now, she had never believed could exist in real life. He would be a refreshing change this astounding man-creature, this Jean Laparde, after the vapid attentions of the vapid men who made up her life in the social whirl of Paris--Count von Heirlich and Lord Barnvegh, for examples, out of a host of satellites who were constantly at her heels, because, of course, she was an heiress; and whose attentions she endured because, of course, some day she must marry, and because, of course again, to marry anything less than a title, a name, fame, was quite out of the question. As for that, no one expected anything but a brilliant match for her--and certainly she expected nothing less for herself. What a pity that they were not like Jean Laparde, those men of her world!