ay. You ought not to think of
resisting me."

"I'm not resisting you; I'm only eluding your grasp. There's one great
obstacle to what you've just been good enough to propose: my
mother-in-law couldn't come. Miss Lucilla van Tromp couldn't spare her.
As a matter of fact, she--Miss Lucilla--asked me to go to Newport and stay
with her all the time Dorothea is with the Prouds; but I declined the
invitation. You see now that I don't lack cool and comfortable quarters
because I couldn't get them."

"I see," he nodded. "You evidently prefer--this."

"I'll tell you what I prefer: I prefer a breathing-space in which to
commune with my own soul."

"You could commune with your own soul at Rhinefields."

"No, I couldn't. It's an exercise that requires not only solitude and
seclusion, but a certain withdrawal from the world. If I were in France,
I should go and spend a fortnight in my old convent at Auteuil; but in
this country the nearest approach I can make to that is to be here where
I am. After all that has happened in the last year and more, I am trying
to find myself again, so to speak--I'm trying to re-establish my
identity with the Diane de la Ferronaise, who seems to me to have faded
back into the distant twilight of time. Won't you let me do it in my own
way, and ask me no more questions? Yes; I see by your face that you
will; and we can be friends again. Now," she added, briskly, springing
up and touching a bell, "you're going to have some of my iced coffee.
I've taught them to make it, just as I used to have it at the
Mauconduit--that was our little place near Compiegne--and I know you'll
find it refreshing."

It was half an hour later, while he was taking leave of her, that a
thought occurred to him which promised to be fruitful of new resources.

"Very well," he declared, as they were parting, "if you persist in
staying here, I, too, shall persist in looking in whenever I come to
town--which will have to be pretty often just now--to see that you're
not down with some sort of fever."

"But," she laughed, "I thought you were going away--to Canada?"

"I'm not obliged to; and you've rather succeeded in dissuading me."

"Then let me succeed in dissuading you from everything. Don't come here
again--please don't."

"I certainly shall."

"I'm generally out."

"In that case I shall stay till you come in."

"Of course I can't keep you from doing that. I will only say that the
American man I've had in mind for t