“The rarest specimens come abroad,” and a dimple showed in her left cheek, “and I read about you in your best novels—­even your authors unconsciously give you away and show your selfishness and arrogance and self-satisfaction.”

“Shocking brutes, aren’t we?”

“Perfectly.”

Then they both laughed, and Sabine suggested it was time they returned to luncheon.

“It is quite two miles from here, and Mr. Cloudwater, although the kindest dear old gentleman, begins to get hungry at one o’clock.”

So they turned and sauntered downwards through the lovely green woods, with the warm hum of insects and the soft summer, glancing sunshine.  And all of you who know the beauties of Carlsbad, or indeed any other of those Bohemian spas, can just picture how agreeable was their walk, and how conducive to amiable discussion and the acceleration of friendship.  Henry tried to get her to tell him some more of the secrets of her countrywomen, but she would not be serious.  She was in a merry mood, and turned the fire into the enemy’s camp, making him disclose the ways of Englishmen.

“I believe you like us as a rule because we are such casual creatures!” he said at last, “rather indifferent about petits soins, and apt to seize what we desire, or take it for granted.”

A sudden shadow came into her face which puzzled him, and she did not answer, but went on to talk of Brittany and the place which she had bought.  Heronac—­just a weird castle perched right upon a rock above a fishing village, with the sea dashing at its base and the spray rising right to her sitting-room windows.

“I have to go across a causeway to my garden upon the main land—­and when it is very rough, I get soaking wet—­it is the wildest place you ever saw.”

“What on earth made you select it?” Lord Fordyce asked.  “You, who look like a fresh rose, to choose a grim brigand’s stronghold as a residence!”

“It suited my mood on the day I first saw it—­and I bought it the following week.  I make up my mind in a minute as to what I want.”

“You must let me motor past and look at it,” he pleaded, “and when my twenty-one days of drinking this uninteresting water is up, I intend going back in my car to Paris, and from there down to see Mont St. Michel.”

“You shall not only look at it—­you may even come in—­if you are nice and do not bore me between now and then,” and she glanced up at him slyly.  “I have an old companion, Madame Imogen Aubert—­who lives with me there—­and she always hopes I shall one day have visitors!”

Lord Fordyce promised he would be a pure sage, and if she would put him on probation, and really take pains to sample his capabilities of not boring in a few more walks, he would come up for judgment at Heronac when it was her good pleasure to name a date.

“I shall be there toward the middle of August.  After we leave here, the Princess and dear Cloudie go to Italy with her little son, the baby Torniloni:  he is such a darling, nearly three years old—­he is at Heronac now with his nurses.”