“Let us assume that I do, as it is.  I have still another suggestion to make.  Admitting that I stay at Rhinefields, why can’t you ask your mother-in-law to come and make you a couple of weeks’ visit there?”

For a moment Diane forgot the restraint she made it a habit to impose upon herself in the new conditions of her life, and slipped back into the spontaneous manner of the past.

“How tiresome you are!  I never knew any one but a child twist himself in so many directions to get his own way.”

“You see, I’m accustomed to having my own way.  You ought not to think of resisting me.”

“I’m not resisting you; I’m only eluding your grasp.  There’s one great obstacle to what you’ve just been good enough to propose:  my mother-in-law couldn’t come.  Miss Lucilla van Tromp couldn’t spare her.  As a matter of fact, she—­Miss Lucilla—­asked me to go to Newport and stay with her all the time Dorothea is with the Prouds; but I declined the invitation.  You see now that I don’t lack cool and comfortable quarters because I couldn’t get them.”

“I see,” he nodded.  “You evidently prefer—­this.”

“I’ll tell you what I prefer:  I prefer a breathing-space in which to commune with my own soul.”

“You could commune with your own soul at Rhinefields.”

“No, I couldn’t.  It’s an exercise that requires not only solitude and seclusion, but a certain withdrawal from the world.  If I were in France, I should go and spend a fortnight in my old convent at Auteuil; but in this country the nearest approach I can make to that is to be here where I am.  After all that has happened in the last year and more, I am trying to find myself again, so to speak—­I’m trying to re-establish my identity with the Diane de la Ferronaise, who seems to me to have faded back into the distant twilight of time.  Won’t you let me do it in my own way, and ask me no more questions?  Yes; I see by your face that you will; and we can be friends again.  Now,” she added, briskly, springing up and touching a bell, “you’re going to have some of my iced coffee.  I’ve taught them to make it, just as I used to have it at the Mauconduit—­that was our little place near Compiegne—­and I know you’ll find it refreshing.”

It was half an hour later, while he was taking leave of her, that a thought occurred to him which promised to be fruitful of new resources.

“Very well,” he declared, as they were parting, “if you persist in staying here, I, too, shall persist in looking in whenever I come to town—­which will have to be pretty often just now—­to see that you’re not down with some sort of fever.”

“But,” she laughed, “I thought you were going away—­to Canada?”

“I’m not obliged to; and you’ve rather succeeded in dissuading me.”

“Then let me succeed in dissuading you from everything.  Don’t come here again—­please don’t.”

“I certainly shall.”

“I’m generally out.”