When spring comes to Paris the city is like a stately, beautiful woman donning her most youthful and most becoming gown and going out into the boulevards to dance in the sunlight to the sprightly strains of Mendelssohn. Even the gargoyles upon Notre Dame and the gargoyles who drive the Paris taxicabs seem to sense the blood-stirring effect of the season. The sidewalks in front of the cafés are cluttered with drowsing drinkers and philosophers. The brown, swollen waters of the Seine glisten as they flow slowly from the shadows of the many bridges. And one cannot walk a hundred yards upon the Champs Elysees without encountering more pretty girls than one ever thought existed.
It was late in such an exhilarating spring afternoon that a luxurious De Dion landaulet swept around a corner into the Rue de la Paix bearing in its blue-gray cushioned tonneau an exquisitely gowned young woman whom even the most exacting boulevardier would have
