The time has come to acknowledge frankly that it was Honora he was studying—­Honora as the type of young American womanhood.  What he did not suspect was that young American womanhood was studying him.  Thanks to a national System, she had had an apprenticeship; the heart-blood of Algernon Cartwright and many others had not been shed in vain.  And the fact that she was playing with real fire, that this was a duel with the buttons off, lent a piquancy and zest to the pastime which it had hitherto lacked.

The Vicomte’s feelings were by no means hidden processes to Honora, and it was as though she could lift the lid of the furnace at any time and behold the growth of the flame which she had lighted.  Nay, nature had endowed her with such a gift that she could read the daily temperature as by a register hung on the outside, without getting scorched.  Nor had there been any design on her part in thus tormenting his soul.  He had not meant to remain more than four days at Silverdale, that she knew; he had not meant to come to America and fall in love with a penniless beauty—­that she knew also.  The climax would be interesting, if perchance uncomfortable.

It is wonderful what we can find the time to do, if we only try.  Monsieur de Toqueville lent Honora novels, which she read in bed; but being in the full bloom of health and of a strong constitution, this practice did not prevent her from rising at seven to take a walk through the garden with Mr. Holt—­a custom which he had come insensibly to depend upon.  And in the brief conversations which she vouchsafed the Vicomte, they discussed his novels.  In vain he pleaded, in caressing undertones, that she should ride with him.  Honora had never been on a horse, but she did not tell him so.  If she would but drive, or walk-only a little way—­he would promise faithfully not to forget himself.  Honora intimated that the period of his probation had not yet expired.  If he waylaid her on the stairs, he got but little satisfaction.

“You converse by the hour with the missionaries, and take long promenades with the architects and charity workers, but to me you will give nothing,” he complained.

“The persons of whom you speak are not dangerous,” answered Honora, giving him a look.

The look, and being called dangerous, sent up the temperature several degrees.  Frenchmen are not the only branch of the male sex who are complimented by being called dangerous.  The Vicomte was desolated, so he said.

“I stay here only for you, and the coffee is slowly deranging me,” he declared in French, for most of their conversations were in that language.  If there were duplicity in this, Honora did not recognize it.  “I stay here only for you, and how you are cruel!  I live for you—­how, the good God only knows.  I exist—­to see you for ten minutes a day.”

“Oh, Vicomte, you exaggerate.  If you were to count it up, I am sure you would find that we talk an hour at least, altogether.  And then, although I am very young and inexperienced, I can imagine how many conquests you have made by the same arts.”