“Mon dieu?” he said.  “I have risked a stroke of the sun to find you.  Why should you so continually run away from me?”

“To test your ingenuity, Vicomte.”

“And that other one—­the stock-broker—­you do not avoid him.  Diable, I am not blind, Mademoiselle.  It is plain to me at luncheon that you have made boil the sluggish blood of that one.  As for me—­”

“Your boiling-point is lower,” she said, smiling.

“Listen, Mademoiselle,” he pursued, bending towards her.  “It is not for my health that I stay here, as I have told you.  It is for the sight of you, for the sound of the music of that low voice.  It is in the hope that you will be a little kinder, that you will understand me a little better.  And to-day, when I learn that still another is on his way to see you, I could sit still no longer.  I do not fear that Spence,—­no.  But this other—­what is he like?”

“He is the best type of American,” replied Honora.  “I am sure you will be interested in him, and like him.”

The Vicomte shrugged his shoulders.

“It is not in America that you will find your destiny, Mademoiselle.  You are made to grace a salon, a court, which you will not find in this country.  Such a woman as you is thrown away here.  You possess qualities—­you will pardon me—­in which your countrywomen are lacking, —­esprit, imagination, elan, the power to bind people to you.  I have read you as you have not read yourself.  I have seen how you have served yourself by this famille Holt, and how at the same time you have kept their friendship.”

“Vicomte!” she exclaimed.

“Ah, do not get angry,” he begged; “such gifts are rare—­they are sublime.  They lead,” he added, raising his arms, “to the heights.”

Honora was silent.  She was, indeed, not unmoved by his voice, into which there was creeping a vibrant note of passion.  She was a little frightened, but likewise puzzled and interested.  This was all so different from what she had expected of him.  What did he mean?  Was she indeed like that?

She was aware that he was speaking again, that he was telling her of a chateau in France which his ancestors had owned since the days of Louis XII; a grey pile that stood upon a thickly wooded height,—­a chateau with a banquet hall, where kings had dined, with a chapel where kings had prayed, with a flowering terrace high above a gleaming river.  It was there that his childhood had been passed.  And as he spoke, she listened with mingled feelings, picturing the pageantry of life in such a place.

“I tell you this, Mademoiselle,” he said, “that you may know I am not what you call an adventurer.  Many of these, alas! come to your country.  And I ask you to regard with some leniency customs which must be strange to Americans.  When we marry in France, it is with a dot, and especially is it necessary amongst the families of our nobility.”

Honora rose, the blood mounting to her temples.