“Aren’t you afraid you’ll make me vain?” she asked.

“It can’t be done,” he averred.  “You simply can’t be spoiled; you’re much too sensible.”

“La! la!” she trilled.  “What a paragon of—­”

—­“everything,” he adjected.

“Everything that I must be, if you so wish it.”

“Just so!” he replied.

“Aren’t you afraid of a paragon, Mr. Harleston?”

“Generally, yes; specifically, no.”

“La! la!” she trilled again.  “You’re becoming mystic; which means mysterious, which means diplomatic, which means deception—­which warns us to get back to the simple life and have dinner.  Want dinner, Mr. Harleston?”

“With you, yes; also breakfast and luncheon daily.”

“You couldn’t do that unless you were my husband,” she replied tantalizingly and adorably.

“I’m perfectly aware of it,” he responded, leaning forward over the back of the chair that separated them.

“But I’m not ready to take a husband, monsieur,” she protested lightly.

“I’m perfectly aware of that also.  When you are ready, madame, I am ready too.  Until then I’m your good friend—­and dinner companion.”

He had spoken jestingly—­yet the jest was mainly pretence; the real passion was there and ready the instant he let it control.  As for Mrs. Clephane, Harleston did not know.  Nor did she herself know—­more than that she was quite content to be with him, and let him do for her, assured that he would not misunderstand, nor misinterpret, nor presume.  So, across the chair’s back, she held out her hand to him; and he took it, pressed it lightly, but answered never a word.

“Now you shall hear the special matter I’ve got bottled up,” said she.  “Whom do you think was here late this afternoon?”

“The Emperor of Spain!” he guessed.

“A diplomatic answer!” she mocked.  “There is no Emperor of Spain; yet it’s not absolutely wide of the diplomatic truth, for it was Mrs. Buissard—­she of the cab, you’ll remember.”

“So!” Harleston exclaimed.  “What’s the move now; I fancy she was not paying a social visit.”

“You fancy correctly,” Mrs. Clephane replied.  “She came to the apartment unannounced; and when I, chancing to be passing the door when she knocked, opened it, and saw who was without, I almost cried out with surprise.  I didn’t cry out, however.  On the contrary, remembering diplomatic ways, I most cordially invited her in.  To do her justice, Mrs. Buissard, beyond expressing hope that I had experienced no ill effect from the occurrence of the other night, wasted no time in coming to business.”

“‘Mrs. Clephane,’ she said, sitting on the corner of the table just where you are sitting now, ’I have a proposition to make to you—­may I make it?’

“I could see no reason to forbid, so I acquiesced.

“’And if you cannot accept straightway, will you promise to forget that it was made?’ she asked.