Frequently he met the Duke Laselli at the Garrisons’.  He also saw a great deal of the de Cartiers and Mile.  Gaudelet.  When, one day, he boldly intimated to Dorothy that de Cartier was in love with Louise and she with him, that young lady essayed to look shocked and displeased, but he was sure he saw a quick gleam of satisfaction in her eyes.  And he was positive the catch in her breath was not so much of horror as it was of joy.  Mrs. Garrison did all in her power to bring him and the pretty French girl together, and her insistence amused him.

One day her plans, if she had any, went racing skyward, and she, as well as all Brussels society, was stunned by the news that de Cartier had deserted his wife to elope with the fair Gaudelet!  When Quentin laconically, perhaps maliciously, observed that he had long suspected the nature of their regard for one another, Mrs. Garrison gave him a withering look and subsided into a chilling unresponsiveness that boded ill for the perceiving young man.  The inconsiderate transgression of de Cartier and the unkindness of the Gaudelet upset her plans cruelly, and she found that she had wasted time irreparably in trying to bring the meddling American to the feet of the French woman.  Quentin revelled in her discomfiture, and Dorothy in secret enjoyed the unexpected turn of affairs.

She had seen through her mother’s design, and she had known all along how ineffectual it would prove in the end.  Philip puzzled her and piqued her more than she cared to admit.  That she did not care for him, except as a friend, she was positive, but that he should persistently betray signs of nothing more than the most ordinary friendship was far from pleasing to her vanity.  The truth is, she had expected him to go on his knees to her, an event which would have simplified matters exceedingly.  It would have given her the opportunity to tell him plainly she could be no more than a friend, and it would have served to alter his course in what she believed to be a stubborn love chase.  But he had disappointed her; he had been the amusing companion, the ready friend, the same sunny spirit, and she was perplexed to observe that he gave forth no indication of hoping or even desiring to be more.  She could not, of course, know that this apparently indifferent young gentleman was wiser, far wiser, than the rest of his kind.  He saw the folly of a rash, hasty leap in the dark, and bided his time like the cunning general who from afar sees the hopelessness of an attack against a strong and watchful adversary, and waits for the inevitable hour when the vigil is relaxed.