Madame Munster’s eyes expanded; she looked very grave.  “What a singular answer to my question!”

“Oh, it is n’t an answer,” said Acton.  “I have wished to ask you, many times.  I thought it probable you would tell me yourself.  The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time.”

The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, “I think I have told you too much!” she said.

This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her.  He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza.  There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so.  “I wish you would ask something of me,” he presently said.  “Is there nothing I can do for you?  If you can’t stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!”

The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth.  Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him.  “You are very strange to-night,” she said, with a little laugh.

“I will do anything in the world,” he rejoined, standing in front of her.  “Should n’t you like to travel about and see something of the country?  Won’t you go to Niagara?  You ought to see Niagara, you know.”

“With you, do you mean?”

“I should be delighted to take you.”

“You alone?”

Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air.  “Well, yes; we might go alone,” he said.

“If you were not what you are,” she answered, “I should feel insulted.”

“How do you mean—­what I am?”

“If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life.  If you were not a queer Bostonian.”

“If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults,” said Acton, “I am glad I am what I am.  You had much better come to Niagara.”

“If you wish to ‘amuse’ me,” the Baroness declared, “you need go to no further expense.  You amuse me very effectually.”

He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it.  There was a moment’s silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, “Have you sent that document to Germany?”

Again there was a moment’s silence.  The expressive eyes of Madame M; auunster seemed, however, half to break it.

“I will tell you—­at Niagara!” she said.

She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened—­the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze.  Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward.  The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same.  Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia.

“Ah, you were here?” exclaimed Acton.