This sufferance, she felt, had somehow affected, at the very outset, a degree of tacit intimacy between them which would not otherwise have occurred in a fortnight, perhaps never. But he had done it with an assurance almost, if not quite, hypnotic, and he had removed his hand--a move, she recognized, which offered more opportunities for bungling than the initial venture--with the exact degree of insouciance, of abstraction, but at the same time not without a slight lighting of the eyes expressive alike of humility and gratitude. Lurking in her mind was an irritation over the position in which she had been placed, and her only solace was the thought that her revenge might be taken when Koltsoff tried it again, as she had no doubt he would. If she had analyzed her emotions she would have been obliged to face the disagreeable truth that she, Anne Wellington, was jealous. Jealous of a stable of horses! After all, introspection, however deep, might not have opened her eyes as to the basic element of her mood, for jealousy had never been among the components of her mental equipment. At all events she was, as she would have expressed it, "peeved." Why? Because he had held her hand--and talked to her like a school girl. But silence, smilingly indifferent, was the only manifestation of her state of mind. If he noticed this he said nothing to indicate that he did, but resumed his conversation as though no interruption had occurred. And curiously enough even her simulation of indifference disappeared as he turned to her, bringing words and all the subtle charm of his personality to bear. Strange elation possessed him and she yielded again as freely as before to that indescribable air of the world which characterized his every action and word. He spoke English with but the faintest accent. Once he lapsed into French, speaking as rapidly as a native. Anne caught him perfectly and answered him at some length in the same tongue. Koltsoff stopped short and gazed at her glowingly. "There, you have demonstrated what I have been trying to say so poorly. Permit me to carry on my point more intimately. Yes, it is so; you are typically an American girl. But wherein do such young women, such as you, my dear Miss Wellington, find their _metier_? In America? In New York? In Newport? No. They are abroad; the wives of diplomats, cabinet ministers, or royal councillors of France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and," the Prince bowed slightly, "of my native land. Here, what lies before you? Ah," he stooped and snatched a bit of clover, "I have seen, I have studied, have I not? Washington, what is it to you? A distant place. And its affairs? Bah, merely items to be skipped in the newspapers. As you have admitted, you know nothing of them. You do not know your cabinet officers; and so you marry and--and what do you Americans say?--settle down." "How knowingly you picture us," smiled the girl. The Prince waved his hands.