“I—­I don’t understand,” murmured Edith plaintively.  Constance looked up with a new interest in her ever sprightly face.

“Well, you see, he’s working so hard to square himself with Medcroft for the break he made about the windows, that he’s taking his spite out on all American architects.  Confound him, he persists in saying I’m all right, but God deliver him from those demmed rotters, the American builders.  He says he wouldn’t let one of us build a hencoop for him, much less a dog kennel.  Oh, I say, Connie, don’t laugh!  How would you like it if—­” But both of them were laughing at him so merrily that he joined them at once.  Burton and O’Brien, who had come in, were smiling discreetly.

“Come, Roxbury, what do you say to a good long walk?” cried Constance.  “I must talk to you seriously about a great many things, beginning with egotism.”  He set forth with alacrity, rejoicing in spite of his limitations.

Upon their return from the delightful stroll along the mountain side, she went at once to her room to dress for dinner.  Brock, more deeply in love than ever before, lighted a cigar and seated himself in the gallery, dubiously retrospective in his meditations.  He was sorely disturbed by her almost constant allusion to Freddie Ulstervelt and his “amazingly attractive ways.”  Was it possible that she could be really in love with that insignificant little whipper-snapper?  He seemed to be propounding this doleful question to the lofty, sphinx-like Waldraster-Spitze, looming dark in the path of the south.

“Hello!” exclaimed a voice close to his ear,—­the fresh, confident voice that he knew so well.  “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”  Freddie drew up a chair and sat down at his “good side.”  The young man appeared to have something weighty on his mind.  Brock shifted uneasily.  “I want to put it up to you, Mr. Medcroft, as man to man.  You are Connie’s brother-in-law and you ought to be able to set me straight.”

“Ah, I see,” said Brock vaguely.

“You do?” queried the other, surprise and doubt in his face.

“No, I should say I don’t, don’t you see,” substituted Brock.

“I was wondering how you could have seen.  It’s a matter I haven’t discussed with anyone.  I’ve come to have a liking for you, Roxbury.  You’re my sort; you have a sort of New York feeling about you.  I’m sure you’re enough of a sport to give me unprejudiced advice.  Hands across the sea, see?  Well, to get right down to the point, old man,—­you’ll pardon my plain speech,—­I think Constance ought to marry an American.”

Brock sat up very straight.  “I think that’s—­that’s a matter for Miss Fowler to determine,” he said coldly.

“You don’t quite get my meaning,” persisted Freddie, crossing his legs comfortably.  “I was trying to make it easy for myself.”

“You mean, you think she ought to marry you?”

“That’s it, precisely.  How clever you are.”