Well! the Jook was thoroughly in the vortex now: there was no doubt about that. Kitty might laugh as loud as she pleased, and he only looked charmed. Kitty might frisk like a will-o'-the wisp, and he only admired her innocent vivacity. Even the bits of slang and the Americanisms which occasionally slipped from her only struck him as original and piquant. How would it all end? That neither Koenigin nor I could divine, for Kitty was not one to wear her heart upon her sleeve. It was very little that we saw of Kitty in these days, for she was always wandering off somewhere, boating on the broad placid river or lounging about "Greenleaf's" or driving--always with the Jook for cavalier, and, if the excursions were long, with her father to play propriety. When she did come into our room, she was not our own Kitty, with her childish airs and merry laughter. This was a brilliant and volatile little woman of the world, who rattled on in the most amusing manner about everything--except the Jook. About him her lips never opened, and the most distant allusion to him on our part was sufficient to send her fluttering off on some pressing and suddenly remembered errand. Yet this reserve hardly seemed like the shyness of conscious but unacknowledged love. On the contrary, we both fancied--Koenigin and I--that Kitty began to look worried, and somehow, in watching her and the Jook, we began to be conscious that a sort of constraint had crept into her manner toward him. It could be no doubt of his feelings that caused it, for no woman could desire a bolder or more ardent lover than he had developed into, infected, no doubt, by the American atmosphere. Sometimes, too, we caught shy, wistful glances at the Jook from Kitty's eyes, hastily averted with an almost guilty look if he turned toward her. "What can it mean, Koenigin?" I said. "She looks as if she wanted to confess some sin, and was afraid to." "Some childish peccadillo," said Koenigin. "In spite of all her woman-of-the-world-ishness the child has a morbidly sensitive conscience, and is troubled about some nonsense that nobody else would think of twice." "Can it be that she has only been flirting, and is frightened to find how desperately in earnest he is?" "Possibly," replied Koenigin. "But I fancy that she is too well used to that phase of affairs to let it worry her. Wait a while and we shall see."