him. He met her eyes with
a smile of mockery; Its innuendo was unbearable.

"You know very well," she burst forth impetuously, "that I would never
have thought of really accepting an automobile from you!"

Then he laughed again with fresh amusement.

"_Comme madame se fache!_" he cried, "it is most droll! All that I may
say you will believe."

"I find you very exasperating," Rosina exclaimed, her cheeks becoming
hotly pink; "you amuse yourself in a way that transcends politeness. I
honestly think that you are very rude indeed, and I _am_ in earnest
now."

He made a careless movement with his head.

"Would you have preferred that I should believe you really expect of me
an automobile?" he asked.

"You could not possibly have thought that anyhow, and so why should you
have spoken as if you were afraid lest I might have meant it?"

He rapped on a tree with his cane as he passed it.

"'Might,' and 'would,' and 'should,'" he said placidly, "those are the
hardest words for a stranger to learn correctly."

She felt her temper slipping its anchor.

"Probably when your tutor endeavored to teach you their difference you
feared that yielding to his way might be sacrificing your independence,
and so you refused to consider his instruction."

He struck another tree with his cane.

"When you talk so fast and use such great words I cannot understand at
all," he said calmly.

Then she fairly choked.

"Are you quite really angry?" he asked with curiosity. She turned her
face away and kept it averted.

"Let us go into the cafe of the Nationale and dine," he proposed
suddenly.

"No," she said quickly,--"no, I must go home at once. I have a dinner
engagement, and I must change my dress before I go."

"Then I shall not see you this evening?"

"No" (very bitterly); "what a pity that will be!"

"But to-morrow?"

"I am going with a party to the Gutsch."

"But that will not be all day?"

"Perhaps."

He hesitated in his step, and then came to a full stop.

"Let us go up this little street," he suggested. "I was there yesterday;
it is interesting really."

She continued to walk on alone and he was obliged to rejoin her; then he
glanced downward somewhat anxiously.

"We cannot speak here," he said in a low tone, "we know so many people
that come against us each minute. Do walk with me up to the church
there, we cannot go to the hotel like this."

It is true that the Quai at Lucerne has a trick of slipping away