Nevertheless, Muriel was annoyed. She was annoyed lest they had fallen in with the servant, which they had not done, and been told that she was out. She was annoyed with Jim because he had brought to call upon her a man that, only a few days before, she had told him she disliked. And she was distinctly annoyed with von Klausen. Yet the interview passed off pleasantly enough. Jim was never the man to observe under a woman's conventional politeness, even when that politeness was ominously intensified, the fires of her disapproval, and von Klausen, if indeed he saw more than the husband, at least appeared to see no more. He remained to tea. "Why on earth did you bring _him_ here?" asked Muriel as soon as the door had closed on the Austrian. "Why, did you mind?" "I told you that I didn't like him." "I know, but you didn't seem to mind." "I managed not to be rude to your guest, that's all. Jim, you must have remembered that I said I didn't like him." "Yes, I do remember," Stainton confessed; "but the fact is that I brought him because I couldn't very well get out of bringing him. He was so extremely glad to see me that I couldn't merely drop him in the lobby." "How did he know that we were here?" "I told him on the boat that we were to stop here." "But we have been and gone and returned since then." "Then I suppose he found us out in the same way that Boussingault did: in the hotel news of the _Daily Mail_." "Well, you might have told him that I wasn't at home. That's what I told the servant when his card was sent up." "Yes, Muriel, I might have tried that, and, as a matter of fact, I did think of it; but then he would have hung on to me downstairs, and I knew you would be lonely up here without me." Muriel turned away to observe herself in a long mirror. "You know I don't like him," she repeated. "Yes, yes, dear, but what was I to do. Besides, he is really a very good fellow; I really can't see why you don't like him. What reason can you have for your prejudice?" "When a woman can give a reason for disliking a man," said Muriel, "she hasn't any. If her dislike comes just because she has no reason there's generally good ground for it." "There's nothing wrong with von Klausen," said Jim. "Besides, he's a mere boy." "Please don't talk about his youth. He is at least five years older than I am." "Are you so very aged, my dear?" "I am old enough, it appears, to be the wife of my young husband." Stainton kissed her. "Well said," he declared; "your young husband has been so weather-beaten that he has been a pretty poor sort of spouse lately. We won't worry any more about von Klausen." Yet to worry about von Klausen they were forced. They seemed, during the next ten days, to meet him everywhere, and he was always so polite that his invitations could not be contumeliously refused. He took them to the opera and to supper afterwards, and they, at last, had to ask him to dine.