“You are not staying long in Alstadt?” she said.

“No; I only came to see the old town that my ancestors came from.”

They were walking so close together that her skirt brushed his trousers, but she suddenly drew away from him, and looking him fixedly in the eye said: 

“Ah, you have relations here?”

“Yes, but they are dead two hundred years.”

She laughed again with a slight expression of relief.  They had entered the copse and were walking in dense shadow when she suddenly stopped and sat down upon a rustic bench.  To his surprise he found that they were quite alone.

“Tell me about these relatives,” she said, slightly drawing aside her skirt to make room for him on the seat.

He did not require a second invitation.  He not only told her all about his ancestral progenitors, but, I fear, even about those more recent and more nearly related to him; about his own life, his vocation—­he was a clever newspaper correspondent with a roving commission—­his ambitions, his beliefs and his romance.

“And then, perhaps, of this visit—­you will also make ’copy’?”

He smiled at her quick adaptation of his professional slang, but shook his head.

“No,” he said gravely.  “No—­this is you.  The Chicago interviewer is big pay and is rich, but it hasn’t capital enough to buy you from me.”

He gently slid his hand toward hers and slipped his fingers softly around it.  She made a slight movement of withdrawal, but even then—­as if in forgetfulness or indifference—­permitted her hand to rest unresponsively in his.  It was scarcely an encouragement to gallantry, neither was it a rejection of an unconscious familiarity.

“But you haven’t told me about yourself,” he said.

“Oh, I,” she returned, with her first approach to coquetry in a laugh and a sidelong glance, “of what importance is that to you?  It is the Grand Duchess and Her Highness the Princess that you Americans seek to know.  I am—­what I am—­as you see.”

“You bet,” said Hoffman with charming decision.

“I what?”

“You are, you know, and that’s good enough for me, but I don’t even know your name.”

She laughed again, and after a pause, said:  “Elsbeth.”

“But I couldn’t call you by your first name on our first meeting, you know.”

“Then you Americans are really so very formal—­eh?” she said slyly, looking at her imprisoned hand.

“Well, yes,” returned Hoffman, disengaging it.  “I suppose we are respectful, or mean to be.  But whom am I to inquire for?  To write to?”

“You are neither to write nor inquire.”

“What?” She had moved in her seat so as to half-face him with eyes in which curiosity, mischief, and a certain seriousness alternated, but for the first time seemed conscious of his hand, and accented her words with a slight pressure.