Her direct manner of speech, her decisive tone, in which she placed the matter of his identity on a purely practical and unsentimental plane, gave him a new impression of her character.

“But Captain Claiborne—­”

He ceased suddenly and she anticipated the question at which he had faltered, and answered, a little icily: 

“I do not consider it any of my business to meddle in your affairs with my brother.  He undoubtedly believes you are the impostor who palmed himself off at Bar Harbor as the Baron von Kissel.  He was told so—­”

“By Monsieur Chauvenet.”

“So he said.”

“And of course he is a capital witness.  There is no doubt of Chauvenet’s entire credibility,” declared Armitage, a little airily.

“I should say not,” said Shirley unresponsively.  “I am quite as sure that he was not the false baron as I am that you were not.”

Armitage laughed.

“That is a little pointed.”

“It was meant to be,” said Shirley sternly.  “It is”—­she weighed the word—­“ridiculous that both of you should be here.”

“Thank you, for my half!  I didn’t know he was here!  But I am not exactly here—­I have a much, safer place,”—­he swept the blue-hilled horizon with his hand.  “Monsieur Chauvenet and I will not shoot at each other in the hotel dining-room.  But I am really relieved that he has come.  We have an interesting fashion of running into each other; it would positively grieve me to be obliged to wait long for him.”

He smiled and thrust his hat under his arm.  The sun was dropping behind the great western barricade, and a chill wind crept sharply over the valley.

He started to walk beside her as she turned away, but she paused abruptly.

“Oh, this won’t do at all!  I can’t be seen with you, even in the shadow of my own house.  I must trouble you to take the side gate,”—­and she indicated it by a nod of her head.

“Not if I know myself!  I am not a fraudulent member of the German nobility—­you have told me so yourself.  Your conscience is clear—­I assure you mine is equally so!  And I am not a person, Miss Claiborne, to sneak out by side gates—­particularly when I came over the fence!  It’s a long way around anyhow—­and I have a horse over there somewhere by the inn.”

“My brother—­”

“Is at Fort Myer, of course.  At about this hour they are having dress parade, and he is thoroughly occupied.”

“But—­there is Monsieur Chauvenet.  He has nothing to do but amuse himself.”

They had reached the veranda steps, and she ran to the top and turned for a moment to look at him.  He still carried his hat and crop in one hand, and had dropped the other into the side pocket of his coat.  He was wholly at ease, and the wind ruffled his hair and gave him a boyish look that Shirley liked.  But she had no wish to be found with him, and she instantly nodded his dismissal and half turned away to go into the house, when he detained her for a moment.