"Yes," Mr. Wycherly replied, "and it is a curious thing that I was reminded of that very poem when I saw you dancing in the garden. I wonder why I didn’t connect it with your mountains?" "I often dance. I dance when I’m happy, and I dance when I’m very full of feelings, not exactly happy, but—big, tremendous feelings." "Tell me, my child, what you think of ’Don Juan’ as far as you have read." "Poor dear," cried Jane-Anne, "he was so unfortunate. No sooner did he get comfortably settled with a nice, beautiful lady than some cross old husband or father, or somebody, interfered. It was a shame." "Perhaps," Mr. Wycherly suggested, "there may have been something to say on their side, too, you know. Though it is a side less often treated by the writers of romance." "Haidée’s father was horrid," she cried vehemently. "You must think so, too, don’t you?" "Suppose," said Mr. Wycherly, "I went away for a long time, so long that you came to the conclusion I was dead——" "I should die, too," Jane-Anne interrupted. "Oh, no, you wouldn’t. Suppose, say, that some very charming and delightful youth appeared who took up all your attention, and suddenly I came back to find you giving a grand party in the garden." "Aunt would never permit it for one minute," she cried, aghast. "But we must eliminate aunt; Haidée, so far as we know, had no wise and excellent aunt to look after her. Let me see. Oh, yes! Suppose I came back and found this festivity going on, the agreeable youth acting as host, and you, my dear, entirely absorbed in him, and the whole house upside down. Would you expect me to feel very amiable?" Jane-Anne gazed earnestly at Mr. Wycherly. The gentle, high-bred face was quite grave, though persons better versed than Jane-Anne in subtleties of expression might have noted a look of considerable amusement in his handsome eyes. "But Haidée’s father wasn’t a bit like you," she objected. "He was a cruel pirate." "Even pirates have their parental feelings," he pleaded. Jane-Anne looked much perturbed. "It sounds horrid said like that," she murmured sadly; "but it’s beautiful in the poetry book." "How much have you read?" asked Mr. Wycherly. "Only to where poor, pretty Haidée dies. I don’t read very fast, you know—not like you, sir, and Master Montagu; and when I like a bit I read it over and over again." "And what do you like best in the book so far as you have gone?" "Oh, my father’s poem, far, far the best. I can say it nearly all by heart. But one reason I’ve been so slow is, I wanted dreadfully to know about Lord Byron, and in the bottom shelf, where ’Sir Stafford Raffles’ is, I found a book all about him, a fat crimson book, and I’ve been reading that." "Really," Mr. Wycherly remarked, "you’ve lost no time. Well, and what do you make of that?"