however, was all that could be desired.  The shyest of men—­shy and proud as only an Englishman can be—­he could not make up his mind to walk directly up to Kitty, as an American would do, as all the young Americans in the room would have done if Kitty had let them.  But Kitty, flighty little butterfly as she seemed, had stores of tact and finesse in that little brain of hers, and the power of developing a fine reserve which had already wilted more than one of the young men of the house.  For Kitty was none of your arrant and promiscuous flirts who count “all fish that come to their net.”  She was choice and dainty in her flirtations, but, possibly, none the less dangerous for that.

The Jook hovered about the room from chair to sofa, from sofa to window-seat, finding himself at each remove one degree nearer to Kitty.

“He is like a tame canary-bird,” whispered Koenigin.  “Let it alone and it will come up to you after a while, but speak to it and you frighten it off at once.”

And when at length he reached Kitty’s side, how beautiful was the look of slight surprise, not too strongly marked, and the half-shy pleasure in the eyes which she raised to him; and then the coy little gesture with which she swept aside her draperies and made room for him.  Half the power of Kitty’s witcheries lay in her frank, childish manner, just dashed with womanly reserve.

Well! the Jook was thoroughly in the vortex now:  there was no doubt about that.  Kitty might laugh as loud as she pleased, and he only looked charmed.  Kitty might frisk like a will-o’-the wisp, and he only admired her innocent vivacity.  Even the bits of slang and the Americanisms which occasionally slipped from her only struck him as original and piquant.  How would it all end?  That neither Koenigin nor I could divine, for Kitty was not one to wear her heart upon her sleeve.  It was very little that we saw of Kitty in these days, for she was always wandering off somewhere, boating on the broad placid river or lounging about “Greenleaf’s” or driving—­always with the Jook for cavalier, and, if the excursions were long, with her father to play propriety.  When she did come into our room, she was not our own Kitty, with her childish airs and merry laughter.  This was a brilliant and volatile little woman of the world, who rattled on in the most amusing manner about everything—­except the Jook.  About him her lips never opened, and the most distant allusion to him on our part was sufficient to send her fluttering off on some pressing and suddenly remembered errand.  Yet this reserve hardly seemed like the shyness of conscious but unacknowledged love.  On the contrary, we both fancied—­Koenigin and I—­that Kitty began to look worried, and somehow, in watching her and the Jook, we began to be conscious that a sort of constraint had crept into her manner toward him.  It could be no doubt of his feelings that caused it, for no woman could desire a bolder or more ardent lover than he had developed into, infected, no doubt, by the American atmosphere.  Sometimes, too, we caught shy, wistful glances at the Jook from Kitty’s eyes, hastily averted with an almost guilty look if he turned toward her.