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Show j' . uVem, Vidi, Vici" ! By PHILIP E. STEVENSON j ( v by Western Newspaper Union.) ((T KN(iV jut what you're goin to I tell me." I said to my friend An-i An-i lire, whom I saw looking at me with his confidential smile. "Of course you are in the midst of another affair of - the heart, and it was in this cafe that "I met her!" Andre finished for me. ."Yes! I'recisement !" Ve sat, my friend and I, at one of i the outdoor tables, on the Avenue de j Clichy. Paris table at which I had lis- tened to so many of Andre's tales of ! conquest. For Andre was handsome, j romantic, foolish and impulsive enough to make an ideal lover. : "Well, what is she this time?" I asked. "Seems to me you've been j tangled up in everything but an actress. Thank goodness, you've been original enoiiL'li to escape so far." 'To begin with." said 'Andre, "she is an actress." I could not help giving a start. "But oil ! tuon ami, if only you " "Yait ! Wait !" I cried, recovering my senses. "Are you sure that you could not sum up the entire experience in three words as usual ?" Andre raised his brows. "I mean. 'Yeni, vidi. vici'?" Here Andre lapsed into French to tell me, with a mail enthusiasm, that dinette's hair was like wavelets on the Seine beneath dark woods at twilight : her eyes, reflections of Sirius in a quiet pool ; her lips, lily-petals stained with the innocent blood of a child. "Yes ! I was in love. It was a squash no, a what is 'beguin' in English? Eng-lish? Yes, a crush love at first sight, and when I escorted her home I asked if I might come in. I was half prepared pre-pared for a refusal (after all, she knew me so little!), but she dazed me by her answer: 'Oh, monsieur, it is so late, mother will be in bed.' "Figure yourself. An actress, living in Jlontmarte, saying such a thing. I had thought such virtue existed only in bad novels, not in bad actresses. But I saw her again last week in front of a jewelry shop on the rue de la Pair. It was only a hump no, a hunch, that had brought me there. I lifted my hat and inquired what interested her. and surprised her into a truthful answer: 'That little wedding ring there, monsieur, mon-sieur, underneath the pendant. But refusing to take such a naive answer for less than profound punning, I raked up a cynicism. 'Remember, mademoiselle,' mademoi-selle,' I said, 'the proverb which says that the marriage ceremony is the burial service of love.' "But would you believe it? her eyes only filled with tears, and she said: "Then love is not for me, monsieur. . . . Yet you are wrong, wrong!' And she saved herself no, fled. "I was sour I mean, sore. I would have her yet. She would surrender to me, Andre. Fancy her teaching me life. Pah !" Andre stopped, pinching bis nose again with his long fingers, suddenly tnougutlui. As tor me, i was disgusted dis-gusted with his story. Always before Andre had dealt with victims who understood un-derstood and welcomed his intentions; but this time the affair hud the flavor of seduction. "I see you are impatient," he continued con-tinued at' last. "I shall briefly note our little dinner together soon after, and the taxi ride to her house when I found she loved me. Now she lay trembling trem-bling in my arms like a frightened bird . . . refusing to admit . Followed another rhapsody In French, voluble, brilliant, agitated. "Yesterday I met her again and consented to meet her mother. Figure yourself. She left me in the flat with her old mother while she went out to buy some jam for tea. Madame Dore is one of those admirable little old women of Brittany that you associate with fog and melancholy melan-choly tiny fishing villages; she was sturdy and eternal, with a mixture of simplicity and wisdom in her eyes. "I began by complimenting her on her daughter, and she launched forth Into a tirade: 'Oh. monsieur!' and she Joined her hunds 'she Is all my life, my comfort, since my Jules, my husband, hus-band, died. She has told me and about that dreadful day at the Lapin. She likes you, monsieur, much. And what a darling wife ' "Do you perceive? The same thing J again ! Yet I was not angry, only quiet, thoughtful, I do not know why. . . . When It was time to leave, my plans were all 'ranged. ... Ah ! but I am stupid, stupid, and of a stupidity." Andre seemed crestfallen. "I might have told the story In three words after all. You see. I " "Came," I supplied. "I saw," said he. "You conquered," I said dryly; but I thought, "seduced." "Concurred," he said. "But you mean 'conquered.'" "I mean Iconcurred.' " "You mispronounced," I asserted with touchy shortness, and spelled the word out for him. "Precisely wrong," said Andre, smiling smil-ing broadly. "Does not 'concur' mean 'agreo' or 'act- in concert?' You. an American, should know. Pah ! wake up. mon cher!" he cried, pum'hing me from across the table. "Xmn de mom. how you are stupide! I am goin t,, marry her, and I want you to sre me' throu ,'h !" Some minutes later I was brought to with tl.e stream of a siphon ijnd. s'iii laughing. Andre led me out imo the air. |