was waiting for her
to speak.

"I think that I shall like him," he added.

"Oh, do you know him?"

"'I was looking at him last night at dinner," he explained, calmly. "He
seems a very interesting man. I looked at all of you a great deal--more
than was perhaps quite polite. I feared you had perceived it."

"No," murmured Susie, desperately, telling a white lie.

"Tellier told me you were Americans--but I should have known it anyway."

"Tellier!" she repeated, turning upon him fiercely, welcoming the
opportunity to create a diversion. "Then he _was_ your emissary! And to
think that I defended you!"

"My emissary?" he stammered. "Defended me?"

"Yes, when--when--some one said you had sent him to us--"

"Sent him to you!" he cried, flushing darkly. "Do you mean to say that
he has been annoying you?"

"It was almost that."

"Ah!" he said. "Ah!" and he grasped his stick in a way that boded ill
for Monsieur Tellier.

Susie, glancing up at him, thought it very fine. He was such a volcano,
and there was such a fearful pleasure in stirring him up--in skipping
over the thin crust with a lively consciousness of the boiling lava
beneath!

"Then you didn't send him?" she inquired, sweetly.

"Send him! Miss Rushford, do you think for a moment that I would be so
rude, so impertinent? Tell me you do not think so!"

"I _didn't_ think so," said Sue, biting her lip, a little fearfully. "I
even defended you, as I have said. But now--"

"But now--"

His eyes seemed to burn her; she dared not look up and meet them. She
even regretted that she had begun to play with fire.

"But now," he repeated, insistently, imperatively.

"No, I don't think so now," she said, with a little catch of the breath.
Then she glanced up at him, and instantly looked away. He should not act
so; every one would notice; it was very embarrassing!

"That is kind of you," he said, in a low voice.

"Though," she added, reprovingly, glad to find a joint in his armour, "I
am surprised that you should discuss me in any way whatever with that
creature!"

"You are right!" he agreed, flushing hotly. "You are quite right. But
the temptation was very great, and I wanted to know so badly. I beg you
to believe that I regretted it an instant later. I do not want that you
should think of me as like that!"

"Perhaps I would better not think of you at all," ventured Sue. Ah, what
a fascination there is in fire!

"That would be still more unbearable!" he p