don’t for a moment suppose that’s what would actually happen; you’d get yourself entangled, and you’d go on and on, and you’d flounder and struggle, and you’d marry her in the end, just to save the girl misery. But we’ll do poojah to your intellect at the expense of your heart, and we’ll put it the other way, as you seem to prefer it. Very well, then; sooner or later you’ll have to leave this place. No doubt, after what I’ve seen this morning, it’ll cost the girl a wrench—her vanity must be flattered by receiving so much undisguised attention from a real live gentleman. But, sooner or later, as I say, come it must, of course; and sooner, on the whole, will be better for her than later. The longer you stop, the more she’ll fall in love with you; the quicker you get away from her the less it’ll hurt her.” He spoke the words of wisdom—according to his kind. Will rose again with an effort, and started homeward. As they walked down the pasture, and through the belt of pinewood, he said never a word. But he thought all the more on Florian’s counsel. Till that morning, he had never tried to face the question himself: he liked the girl—that was all; she sang like a linnet; and he loved to be near her. But the longer he stopped, the harder for her would be the inevitable breaking off. Just beyond the pinewood Florian halted and fronted him. “See here, Will,” he said, kindly, but with the world’s common sense, “it isn’t that I care twopence myself what becomes of the girl—girls like that are just made for you and me to play skittles with; if you meant her any harm I wouldn’t for the world interfere with any other man’s little fancies. All I want is to get you away from the place before you’ve time to commit yourself. I use the other argument as an _argumentum ad hominem_ only. But as that it has its weight. The longer you stop, the harder it’ll be in the end for her.” Will drew a deep breath. His mind was made up now. “Very well, then,” he said, slowly, though with an evident struggle; “if I must go, I must go. I won’t haggle over a day. Let us make it to-morrow.” CHAPTER X HAIL, COLUMBIA! And next morning, indeed, saw them safe at Innsbruck. ’Twas a pull to get away; Will frankly admitted to his own soul he felt it so. But he saw it was right, and he went accordingly. Linnet, he knew, had grown fond of him in those few days; when he asked her once how it was she liked Franz Lindner less now than formerly, she looked up at him with an arch smile, and, after a second’s pause, made the frank avowal: “Perhaps it’s because now . . . I think Englishmen nicer.” At the moment his heart had come up in his mouth with pleasure, as will happen with all of us when a pretty woman lets us see for ourselves she really likes us. But he must go all the same: for Linnet’s sake—he must go: if illusion there were, he must at once disillusion her.