He stood up. “Let’s stay here, please,” he asked her, whispering; and he bent a little while he waited for her to be seated, hiding from sight of anyone who might glance over the tops of the palms. He was beside her on the bench now. “I want you to tell me what I did in there just now, Miss Gail,” he asked. “Agnes Ertyle can’t, of course; others, whom I know pretty well, won’t. But you will, I think.” The complete friendliness of this confidence made Ruth wonder what he might have known about Cynthia Gail, which let him thus so instinctively disclose himself to her; but it was not to Cynthia Gail; it was to her, herself, Ruth! “I’ve only known you for an hour, Miss Gail; but I’d rather have your honest opinion than that of any other American.” From the way he said that, she could not tell whether he had chosen his word purposely to except Lady Agnes Ertyle from any comparison with her; and she wanted to know! “I think you meant to say a very, very fine thing,” Ruth told him simply. “But I actually said----” “You’ve been a long time away from home--from America, our country,” Ruth interrupted him before he could get her into greater difficulties. “You’ve only known me an hour; but, of course, I’ve known you--or about you--for a good many years. Everyone has. You’ve been away ever since the start of the war, of course; and even before that you were away, mostly in England, for the greater part of your time, weren’t you?” “I was at school at Harrow for a while,” he confessed. “And I was at Cambridge in 1913-1914.” “That’s what I thought. So while you’ve called yourself an American and you’ve meant to stay an American--I know you meant that--you couldn’t quite really become one, could you?” He drew back from her a trifle and his eyes rested upon hers a little confused, while color crept into his brown face and across his forehead. “Please tell me just what you want to,” he begged. “I don’t want to tell you a thing unpleasant!” she cried quietly. “And I can’t, unless you’ll believe that I never admired anyone so much as you when you were speaking--I mean anyone,” she qualified quickly, “who was saying things which I believed all wrong!” Terror for her boldness caught her again; but it was because he had seen that with him she must be bold--or honest--that he had wanted her there; for he did want her there and more than before. While he had been speaking, she had been thinking about him--thinking as well as feeling for him; and she had been thinking about him ever since--thinking thoughts her own, or at least distinct from his and from those of his friends in the other rooms who had so acclaimed him and from whom he had fled. He realized it; and that was why he wanted her. “I believe that to be a true American is the highest honor in the world today,” she said with the simplicity of deep feeling. “I believe that, so far from having anything to be ashamed about, an American--particularly such an American as you might be----”