The pleasure-seeking crowds loitered along in the warmth of the evening.
Bebee, suddenly roused from her thoughts by the loud challenge of the military music, looked round on the stranger, and motioned him back.
"Sir,--I do not know you,--why should you come with me?
Do not do it, please.

You make me talk, and that makes me late." And she pushed her basket farther on her arm, and nodded to him and ran off--as fleetly as a hare through fern--among the press of the people.
"To-morrow, little one," he answered her with a careless smile, and let her go unpursued.

Above, from the open casement of a cafe, some young men and some painted women leaned out, and threw sweetmeats at him, as in carnival time.
"A new model,--that pretty peasant ?" they asked him.
He laughed in answer, and went up the steps to join them; he dropped the moss-roses as he went, and trod on them, and did not wait..