“And shall you be in Washington many days yet?” he appealed as they went. “It will all depend. I’m expecting important news. What I shall do will be influenced by that.” The way she talked about expecting news—and important!—made him feel somehow that she had a career, that she was active and independent, so that he could scarcely hope to stop her as she passed. It was certainly true that he had never seen any girl like her. It would have occurred to him that the news she was expecting might have reference to the favour she had begged of the President, if he hadn’t already made up his mind—in the calm of meditation after that talk with the Bonnycastles—that this favour must be a pleasantry. What she had said to him had a discouraging, a somewhat chilling effect; nevertheless it was not without a certain ardour that he inquired of her whether, so long as she stayed in Washington, he mightn’t pay her certain respectful attentions. “As many as you like—and as respectful ones; but you won’t keep them up for ever!” “You try to torment me,” said Count Otto. She waited to explain. “I mean that I may have some of my family.” “I shall be delighted to see them again.” Again she just hung fire. “There are some you’ve never seen.” In the afternoon, returning to Washington on the steamer, Vogelstein received a warning. It came from Mrs. Bonnycastle and constituted, oddly enough, the second juncture at which an officious female friend had, while sociably afloat with him, advised him on the subject of Pandora Day. “There’s one thing we forgot to tell you the other night about the self-made girl,” said the lady of infinite mirth. “It’s never safe to fix your affections on her, because she has almost always an impediment somewhere in the background.” He looked at her askance, but smiled and said: “I should understand your information—for which I’m so much obliged—a little better if I knew what you mean by an impediment.” “Oh I mean she’s always engaged to some young man who belongs to her earlier phase.” “Her earlier phase?” “The time before she had made herself—when she lived unconscious of her powers. A young man from Utica, say. They usually have to wait; he’s probably in a store. It’s a long engagement.” Count Otto somehow preferred to understand as little as possible. “Do you mean a betrothal—to take effect?” “I don’t mean anything German and moonstruck. I mean that piece of peculiarly American enterprise a premature engagement—to take effect, but too complacently, at the end of time.”