“Not exactly.  I put up the money, in the first place, to save the credit of the Guion name, and with the intention, if you didn’t pay me back, to do without it.”

“And you risked being considered over-officious.”

“There wasn’t much risk about that,” he smiled.  “They did think me so—­and do.”

“And you got every one into a fix.”

“Into a fix, but out of prison.”

“Hm!”

She grew restless, uncomfortable, fidgeting with her rings and bracelets.

“And pray, what sort of a person is this Englishman to whom my niece has got herself engaged?”

“One of their very finest,” he said, promptly.  “As a soldier, so they say, he’ll catch up one day with men like Roberts and Kitchener; and as for his private character—­well, you can judge of it from the fact that he wants to strip himself of all he has so that the Guion name shall owe nothing to any one outside—­”

“Then he’s a fool.”

“From that point of view—­yes.  There are fools of that sort, madame.  But there’s something more to him.”

He found himself reciting glibly Ashley’s claims as a suitor in the way of family, position, and fortune.

“So that it would be what some people might call a good match.”

“The best sort of match.  It’s the kind of thing she’s made for—­that she’d be happy in—­regiments, and uniforms, and glory, and presenting prizes, and all that.”

“Hm.  I shall have nothing to do with it.”  She rose with dignity.  “If my niece had only held out a little finger—­”

“It was a case, madame,” he argued, rising, too—­“it was a case in which she couldn’t hold out a little finger without offering her whole hand.”

“You know nothing about it.  I’m wrong to discuss it with you at all.  I’m sure I don’t know why I do, except that—­”

“Except that I’m an American,” he suggested—­“one of your own.”

“One of my own!  Quelle idee!  Do you like him—­this Englishman?”

He hedged.  “Miss Guion likes him.”

“But you don’t.”

“I haven’t said so.  I might like him well enough if—­”

“If you got your money back.”

He smiled and nodded.

“Is she in love with him?”

“Oh—­deep!”

“How do you know?  Has she told you so?”

“Y-es; I think I may say—­she has.”

“Did you ask her?”

He colored.  “I had to—­about something.”

“You weren’t proposing to her yourself, were you?”

He tried to take this humorously.  “Oh no, madame—­”

“You can’t be in love with her, or you wouldn’t be trying so hard to marry her to some one else—­not unless you’re a bigger fool than you look.”

“I hope I’m not that,” he laughed.

“Well, I shall have nothing to do with it—­nothing.  Between my niece and me—­tout est fini.”  She darted from him, swerving again like a bird on the wing.  “I don’t know you.  You come here with what may be no more than a cock-and-bull story, to get inside the chateau.”