all sure of the accuracy of my translation, but its
appropriateness was unquestionable.

"What do you think of the Englishman, Koenigin?" I asked, giving the fire
another poke, not from shamefacedness, but because it really needed it, for
the evening was damp and chilly.

"I like him," said Koenigin decidedly.

Koenigin and I were always prepared with decided opinions, whether we knew
anything about the subject in hand or not.

"He has a fine head," Koenigin went on, "quite a ducal contour, according to
our republican ideas of what a duke ought to be. I like the steady intense
light of his eyes under those straight dark brows, and that little frown
only increases the effect. Then his laugh is so frank and boyish. Yes, I
like him very much."

"He has a nice gentlemanly voice," I suggested--"rather on the
'gobble-gobble' order, but that is the fault of his English birth."

This is enough of that conversation, for, after all, neither of us is the
heroine of this tale. It is well that this should be distinctly understood
at the start. Somehow, "the Jook" (as we generally called him, in memory of
Jeames Yellowplush) and I became very intimate after that, but it was never
anything more than a sort of _camaraderie_. Koenigin knew all about it, and
she pronounced it the most remarkable instance of a purely intellectual
flirtation which she had ever seen; which was all quite correct, except for
the term "flirtation," of which it never had a spice.

One of the Jook's most striking peculiarities, though by no means an
uncommon one among his countrymen, was a profound distrust of new
acquaintances and an utter incapacity of falling into the free and easy
ways which prevail more strongly perhaps in Florida than in any other part
of America. There really was some excuse for him, though, for, not to put
it too strongly, society is a little mixed in Florida, and it is hard for a
foreigner to discriminate closely enough to avoid being drawn into
unpleasant complications if he relaxes in the slightest degree his rules of
reserve. Besides which, the Jook was a man of the most morbid and ultra
refinement. "Refinement" was the word he preferred, but I should have
called it an absurd squeamishness. He could make no allowance for personal
or local peculiarities, and eccentricities in our neighbors which delighted
Koenigin and me and sent us into fits of laughter excited in his mind only
the most profound disgust. Therefore, partly in t