So far as this prospect entered into her plans she freely acknowledged it. It appeared to meet with George Flack’s approval—he also had a big job on that side and it might take years, so that it would be pleasant to have his friends right there. He knew his way about in Paris—or any place like that—much more than in Boston; if they had been poked away in one of those clever suburbs they would have been lost to him.

“Oh, well, you’ll see as much as you want to of us—the way you’ll have to take us,” Delia Dosson said: which led the young man to inquire what way that was and to remark that he only knew one way to take anything—just as it came. “Oh, well, you’ll see,” the girl rejoined; and she would give for the present no further explanation of her somewhat chilling speech. In spite of it, however, she professed an interest in Mr. Flack’s “job”—an interest which rested apparently upon an interest in the young man himself. The slightly surprised observer whom we have supposed to be present would have perceived that this latter sentiment was founded on a conception of Mr. Flack’s intrinsic brilliancy. Would his own impression have justified that?—would he have found such a conception contagious? I forbear to say positively no, for that would charge me with the large responsibility of showing what right our accidental observer might have had to his particular standard. I prefer therefore to note simply that George Flack was quite clever enough to seem a person of importance to Delia Dosson. He was connected (as she supposed) with literature, and was not literature one of the many engaging attributes of her cherished little sister? If Mr. Flack was a writer Francie was a reader: had not a trail of forgotten Tauchnitzes marked the former line of travel of the party of three? The elder sister grabbed them up on leaving hotels and railway-carriages, but usually found that she had brought odd volumes. She considered, however, that as a family they had a sort of superior affinity with the young journalist, and would have been surprised if she had been told that his acquaintance was not a high advantage.

Mr. Flack’s appearance was not so much a property of his own as a prejudice on the part of those who looked at him: whoever they might be what they saw mainly in him was that they had seen him before. And, oddly enough, this recognition carried with it in general no ability to remember—that is to recall—him: you could not have evoked him in advance, and it was only when you saw him that you knew you had seen him. To carry him in your mind you must have liked him very much, for no other sentiment, not even aversion, would have taught you what distinguished him in his group: aversion in especial would have made you conscious only of what confounded him. He was not a particular person, but a sample or memento—reminding one of certain “goods” for which there is a steady popular demand. You would scarcely have expected him to have a name other than that of his class: a number, like that of the day’s newspaper, would have been the most that you would count on, and you would have expected vaguely to find the number high—somewhere up in the millions. As every copy of the newspaper wears the same label, so that of Miss Dosson’s visitor would have been “Young commercial American.” Let me add that among the accidents of his appearance was that of its sometimes striking other young commercial Americans as fine. He was twenty-seven years of age and had a small square head, a light gray overcoat, and in his right forefinger a curious natural crook which might have served, under pressure, to identify him. But for the convenience of society he ought always to have worn something conspicuous—a green hat or a scarlet necktie. His job was to obtain material in Europe for an American “society-paper.”

If it be objected to all this that when Francie Dosson at last came in she addressed him as if she easily placed him, the answer is that she had been notified by her father—more punctually than was indicated by the manner of her response. “Well, the way you do turn up,” she said, smiling and holding out her left hand to him: in the other hand, or the hollow of her right arm, she had a largeish parcel. Though she had made him wait she was evidently very glad to see him there; and she as evidently required and enjoyed a great deal of that sort of indulgence. Her sister’s attitude would have told you so even if her own appearance had not. There was that in her manner to the young man—a perceptible but indefinable shade—which seemed to legitimate the oddity of his having asked in particular for her, as if he wished to see her to the exclusion of her father and sister: a kind of special pleasure which had the air of pointing to a special relation. And yet a spectator, looking from Mr. George Flack to Miss Francie Dosson, would have been much at a loss to guess what special relation could exist between them. The girl was exceedingly, extraordinarily pretty, and without discoverable resemblance to her sister; and there was a brightness in her—a kind of still radiance—which was quite distinct from what is called animation. Rather tall than short, slim, delicate and evidently as light of hand and of foot as it was possible to be, she yet gave no impression of quick movement, of abundant chatter, of excitable nerves and irrepressible life—no hint of being of the most usual (which is perhaps also the most graceful) American type.