“If you consider me nothing more than an idea, you do not manifest your usual astuteness,” I said. Her reply laid me flat. “I do not consider you anything of the sort. I never so much as associated you with anything resembling an idea. I merely asked a question,” she said. “I repeat it. Do you or do you not exist? Are you a bit of the really real or a bit of Mr. Harley’s realism? In short, are you here at Profile Lake, walking and talking with me, or are you not?” A realizing sense of my true position crept over me. In reality I was not there talking to her, but in my den in New York writing about her. I may not be a realist, but I am truthful. I could not deceive her, so I replied, hesitatingly: “Well, Miss Andrews, I am—no, I am not here, except in spirit.” “That’s what I thought,” she said, demurely. “And do you exist somewhere, or is this a ‘situation’ calculated to delight the American girl—with pin-money to spend on Messrs. Herring, Beemer, & Chadwick’s publications?” “I do exist,” I replied, meekly; for, I must confess it, I realized more than ever that Miss Andrews was too much for me, and I heartily wished I was well out of it. “And I alone am responsible for this. Harley is off fishing at Barnegat—and do you know why?” “I presume he has gone there to recuperate,” she said. “Precisely,” said I. “After his ungentlemanly, discourteous, and wholly uncalled-for interference with my comfort at Newport,” she said, her face flushing and tears coming into her eyes, “I don’t wonder he’s prostrated.” “I do not know to what you refer,” said I. “I refer to the episode of the runaway horse,” she said, in wrathful remembrance of the incident. “Because I refuse to follow blindly his will, he abuses his power, places me in a false and perilous situation, from which I, a defenceless woman, must rescue myself alone and unaided. It was unmanly of him—and I will pay him the compliment of saying wholly unlike him.” I stood aghast. Poor Stuart was being blamed for my act. He must be set right at once, however unpleasant it might be for me. “He—he didn’t do that,” I said, slowly; “it was I. I wrote that bit of nonsense; and he—well, he was mad because I did it, and said he’d like to kill any man who ill-treated you; and he made me promise never to touch upon your life again.” “May I ask why you did that?” she asked, and I was glad to note that there was no displeasure in her voice—in fact, she seemed to cheer up wonderfully when I told her that it was I, and not Stuart, who had subjected her to the misadventure.