red out of the place like this?" He added ruefully,
"But I'd like to make him give himself away to me somehow."

"He will not, and if he did he would deny it afterward. Do not go near
him nor see him. Be careful that he does not photograph you with his
instantaneous instrument when you are passing. Now you must go. I must
see the Princess."

"Let me go, too. I will explain it to her," said Hoffman.

She stopped, looked at him keenly, and attempted to withdraw her
hands. "Ah, then it IS so. It is the Princess you wish to see. You are
curious--you, too; you wish to see this lady who is interested in you. I
ought to have known it. You are all alike."

He met her gaze with laughing frankness, accepting her outburst as a
charming feminine weakness, half jealousy, half coquetry--but retained
her hands.

"Nonsense," he said. "I wish to see her that I may have the right to see
you--that you shall not lose your place here through me; that I may come
again."

"You must never come here again."

"Then you must come where I am. We will meet somewhere when you have
an afternoon off. You shall show me the town--the houses of my
ancestors--their tombs; possibly--if the Grand Duke rampages--the
probable site of my own."

She looked into his laughing eyes with her clear, stedfast, gravely
questioning blue ones. "Do not you Americans know that it is not the
fashion here, in Germany, for the young men and the young women to walk
together--unless they are VERLOBT?"

"VER--which?"

"Engaged." She nodded her head thrice: viciously, decidedly,
mischievously.

"So much the better."

"ACH GOTT!" She made a gesture of hopelessness at his incorrigibility,
and again attempted to withdraw her hands.

"I must go now."

"Well then, good-by."

It was easy to draw her closer by simply lowering her still captive
hands. Then he suddenly kissed her coldly startled lips, and instantly
released her. She as instantly vanished.

"Elsbeth," he called quickly. "Elsbeth!"

Her now really frightened face reappeared with a heightened color from
the dense foliage--quite to his astonishment.

"Hush," she said, with her finger on her lips. "Are you mad?"

"I only wanted to remind you to square me with the Princess," he laughed
as her head disappeared.

He strolled back toward the gate. Scarcely had he quitted the shrubbery
before the same chasseur made his appearance with precisely the same
salute; and, keeping exactly the same distance, ac