“Of course I am!” I exclaimed, smiling, though I had a sickening wrench of the heart.  “And I suppose you forgot all his faults and failings, and said he could have you, Algiers or no Algiers.”

“I don’t believe he has all those faults and failings you were talking about this evening,” said Di, with her cheeks very pink.  “He may have flirted a little at one time.  Women have spoiled him a lot.  But—­but he does love me, Lisa.”

“And he did love Maxine!” I laughed.

“He didn’t.  He never loved her.  I—­you see, you put such horrid thoughts into my head that—­that I just mentioned her name when he said to-night—­oh, when he said the usual things, about never having cared seriously for anyone until he saw me.  Only—­it seems treacherous to call them ‘usual’ because—­when you love a man you feel that the things he says can never have been said before, in the same way, by any other man to any other woman.”

“Only perhaps by the same man to another woman,” I mocked at her, trying to act as if I were teasing in fun.

“Lisa, you can be hateful sometimes!” she cried.

“It’s only for your good, if I’m hateful now,” I said.  “I don’t want to have you disappointed, when it’s too late.  I want you to keep your eyes open, and see exactly where you’re going.  It’s the truest thing ever said that ‘love is blind.’  You can’t deny that you’re in love with Ivor Dundas.”

“I don’t deny it,” she answered, with a proud air which would, I suppose, have made Ivor want to kiss her.

“And you didn’t deny it to him?”

“No, I didn’t.  But thanks to you, I put him upon a kind of probation.  I wish I hadn’t, now.  I wish I’d shown that I trusted him entirely.  I know he deserves to be trusted; and to-morrow I shall tell him—­”

“I don’t think I should commit myself any further till day after to-morrow,” said I drily.  “Indeed, you couldn’t if you wanted to, unless you wrote or wired.  You won’t see him to-morrow.”

“Yes, I shall,” she contradicted me, opening those big hazel eyes of hers, that looked positively black with excitement.  “He’s going to the Duchess of Glasgow’s bazaar, because I said I should most likely be there:  and I will go—­”

“But he won’t.”

“How can you know anything about it?”

“I do know, everything.  And I’ll tell you what I know, if you’ll promise me two things.”

“What things?”

“That you won’t ask me how I found out, and that you’ll swear never to give me away to anybody.”

“Of course I wouldn’t ‘give you away,’ as you call it.  But—­I’m not sure I want you to tell me.  I have faith in Ivor.  I’d rather not hear stories behind his back.”

“Oh, very well, then, go to the Duchess’s to-morrow,” I snapped, “and wear your prettiest frock to please Ivor, when just about that time he’ll be arriving in Paris to keep a very particular engagement with Maxine de Renzie.”