“Don’t you mean to tell me?”

“Assuredly—­not.”

“Well, I think it’s a roaring shame to write anything to a fellow that he can’t be allowed to read.  I wouldn’t treat you that way.”

“I know you wouldn’t.  You are too good, and too sensible, and too considerate, and all the other kind of too’s, while I am just an unaccountable ninny.  If you ever did anything crazy you wouldn’t like to have it found out, would you?”

“By all means!  Then I could take treatment for the malady.  Lean forward, Dorothy, so that I can see your eyes.  That’s right!  Now, look at me squarely.  Will you tell me what was in that letter?” She returned his gaze steadily, almost mockingly.

“No.”

“That’s all I want to know.  I can always tell by a girl’s eyes whether she is stubborn.”

“I am not stubborn.”

“Well, I’ll drop the matter for all time.  Doubtless you were right when you said it was nonsense; you ought to know.  Changing the subject, I think I’ll like Brussels if I stay here long enough.”  He was again nonchalant, indifferent.  Under her mask of unconcern she felt a trifle piqued that he did not persist in his endeavor to learn the contents of the unfortunate letter.

“How long do you expect—­I mean purpose to stay?” she asked.

“It depends on conditions.  I may be crazy enough to stay six weeks and I may be crazy enough to go away next week.  You see, I’m not committing myself to any specified degree of insanity; it won’t make so much difference when I am found out, as you say.  At present, however, I contemplate staying until that affair at St. Gudule.”

She could not hide the annoyance, the discomfiture, his assertion inspired.  In a second she saw endless unpleasantries—­some pleasantries, it is fair to say—­and there seemed to be no gentle way of escape.  At the same time, there came once more the queer flutter she had felt when she met him in the street, a half-hour before.

“You will find it rather dull here, I am afraid,” she found courage to say.  “Or do you know many people—­the American minister, perhaps?”

“Don’t know a soul here but you and Mrs. Garrison.  It won’t be dull—­not in the least.  We’ll ride and drive, go ballooning or anything you like—­”

“But I can’t, Phil.  Do you forget that I am to be married in six weeks?” she cried, now frightened into an earnest appeal.

“That’s it, precisely.  After that you can’t go ballooning with anybody but the prince, so for at least a month you can have a good time telling me what a jolly good fellow he is.  That’s what girls like, you know, and I don’t mind in the least.  If you want to talk about him by the hour, I won’t utter an objection.  Of course, I suppose you’ll be pretty busy with your trousseau and so forth, and you’ll have the house full of visitors, too, no doubt.  But you can give me a little time.”

“I am sure mamma would not—­”