"We met under the star-r-rs, Mr. Donovan" (this was impudent; my own _r's_ trill, they say), "at the stone seat and by the boat-house, and we talked Shakespeare and had a beautiful time,--all because you thought I was Helen. In your anxiety to be with her you couldn't see that I haven't quite her noble height,--I'm an inch shorter. I gave you every chance there at the boat-house, to see your mistake; but you wouldn't have it so. And you let me leave you there while I went back alone across the lake to Red Gate, right by Battle Orchard, which is haunted by Indian ghosts. You are a most gallant gentleman!" "When you are quite done, Rosalind!" "I don't know when I shall have a chance again, Mr. Donovan," she went on provokingly. "I learned a good deal from you in those interviews, but I did have to do a lot of guessing. That was a real inspiration of mine, to insist on playing that Helen by night and Helen by day were different personalities, and that you must not speak to the one of the other. That saved complications, because you did keep to the compact, didn't you?" I assented, a little grudgingly; and my thoughts went back with reluctant step to those early affairs of mine, which I have already frankly disclosed in this chronicle, and I wondered, with her counterpart before me, how much Helen really meant to me. Rosalind studied me with her frank, merry eyes; then she bent forward and addressed me with something of that prescient air with which my sisters used to lecture me. "Mr. Donovan, I fear you are a little mixed in your mind this morning, and I propose to set you straight." "About what, if you please?" The conceit in man always rises and struts at the approach of a woman's sympathy. My body ached, the knife slash across my ribs burnt, and I felt myself a sadly abused person as Rosalind addressed me. "I understand all about you, Mr. Donovan." My plumage fell; I did not want to be understood, I told myself; but I said: "Please go on." "I can tell you exactly why it is that Helen has taken so strong hold of your imagination,--why, in fact, you are in love with her." "Not that--not that." She snatched the foil from the table and cut the air with it several times as I started toward her. Then she stamped her foot and saluted me. "Stand where you are, sir! Your race, Mr. Donovan, has a bad reputation in matters of the heart. For a moment you thought you were in love with me; but you are not, and you are not going to be. You see, I understand you perfectly." "That's what my sisters used to tell me." "Precisely! And I'm another one of your sisters--you must have scores of them!--and I expect you to be increasingly proud of me." "Of course I admire Helen--" I began, I fear, a little sheepishly.