f the objections to him which both
Esther and Polly had expressed was that he was almost too formal, too
conventional in his manner and behavior for their simpler American
taste. So of course there was some unusual impulse, some strong emotion
and design now urging him ahead almost to the complete forgetting of his
other companions.

But not since the hour of their original meeting had the young German
failed to acknowledge to himself that Betty Ashton had a charm for him
which no other girl had ever before possessed. He had known no other
American girls until now, and his acquaintance with German girls of his
own position in life had been at solemn parties, where they were usually
too frightened and self-conscious to have much to say for themselves. Of
course he had always been told that American girls were unlike any
others and yet had failed to imagine that they could have the beauty and
fascination that Betty Ashton had for him. Why, he had not even tried to
find out anything about her family, about her position in the world! For
it is a curious fact that foreigners who care so much for class
distinctions in their own countries have no such attitude toward
Americans. Because we have no titles, because a family that is poor and
obscure in one generation may be rich and distinguished in the next,
they consider that all Americans are of equal position except in the
matter of wealth. And this fact Carl von Reuter had learned in
connection with Betty Ashton. She was poor, there was no possibility of
doubting it. One could see it plainly enough in the simple fashion in
which they were living and through their ordinary conversation.
Moreover, Betty had made no effort to hide the fact. Indeed, it had
seemed at times as if she were anxious to speak of it for some secret
reason of her own. Yet she need not have felt this necessary, since
there could be no uncertainty in the young count's mind. Frederick von
Reuter, who seemed to have almost forgotten his own emotion in his deep
interest in his cousin's, having made careful inquiries through his
bank, had sadly reported that Miss Ashton could not possibly be regarded
as an American heiress.

This information, tragic as it may have sounded at the time, had no
place in Carl's thoughts tonight. He was only possessed of the one
thought that the girl whom he admired and liked so much was alone in the
woods, probably hurt and needing his aid. And that at any moment she
might be ca