“To Paris?” he said, shaking his head sadly.  “No, dearest one.  Not now.  Listen:  I have in my bag upstairs an offer from a great American corporation.  I am asked to assume the management of its entire business in France.  My headquarters would be in Paris.  My duties would begin as soon as my contract with Sir John Brodney expires.  The position is a lucrative one; it presents unlimited opportunities.  I am a comparatively poor man.  The letter was forwarded to me by Sir John.  I have a year in which to decide.”

“And you—­you will decline?” she asked.

“Yes.  I shall go back to America, where there are no princesses of the royal blood.  Paris is no place for the disappointed, cast-off lover.  I can’t go there.  I love you too madly.  I’d go on loving you, and you—­good as you are, would go on loving me.  There is no telling what would come of it.  It will be hard for me to—­to stay away from Paris—­desperately hard.  Sometimes I feel that I will not be strong enough to do it, Genevra.”

“But Paris is huge, Hollingsworth,” she argued, insistently, an eager, impelling light in her eyes.  “We would be as far apart as if the ocean were between us.”

“Ah, but would we?” he demanded.

“It is almost unheard-of for an American to gain entree to our—­to the set in which—­well, you understand,” she said, blushing painfully in the consciousness that she was touching his pride.  He smiled sadly.

“My dear, you will do me the honour to remember that I am not trying to get into your set.  I am trying to induce you to come into mine.  You won’t be tempted, so that’s the end of it.  Beastly day, isn’t it?” He uttered the trite commonplace as if no other thought than that of the weather had been in his mind.  “By the way,” he resumed, with a most genial smile, “for some queer, un-masculine reason, I took it into my head last night to worry about the bride’s trousseau.  How are you going to manage it if you are unable to leave the island until—­well, say June?”

She returned his smile with one as sweetly detached as his had been, catching his spirit.  “So good of you to worry,” she said, a defiant red in her cheeks.  “You forget that I have a postponed trousseau at home.  A few stitches here and there, an alteration or two, some smart summer gowns and hats—­Oh, it will be so simple.  What is it?  What do you see?”

He was looking eagerly, intently toward the long, low headland beyond the town of Aratat.

“The smoke!  See?  Close in shore, too!  By heaven, Genevra—­there’s a steamer off there.  She’s a small one or she wouldn’t run in so close.  It—­it may be the yacht!  Wait!  We’ll soon see.  She’ll pass the point in a few minutes.”

Scarcely breathing in their agitation, they kept the glasses levelled steadily, impatiently upon the distant point of land.  The smoke grew thicker and nearer.  Already the citizens of the town were rushing to the pier.  Even before the vessel turned the point, the watchers at the chateau witnessed a most amazing performance on the dock.  Half a hundred natives dropped down as if stricken, scattering themselves along the narrow pier.  For many minutes Chase was puzzled, bewildered by this strange demonstration.  Then, the explanation came to him like a flash.