Cartaret was certain that the land which could produce this presence, at once so human and so spiritual, was well worth loving. He wanted to say so, but another glance at her serene face checked any impulse that might seem impertinent. "I, too, love my country, although I am not superstitious," the Girl pursued, "so I had brought it with me from my country. I brought it with me to Paris, and I lost it. We go early to sleep, the people of my race; I had not missed it when I went to bed; but then Chitta missed it; and I told her that I thought that I had perhaps dropped it here. She ran before I could recall her--and I fell straightway asleep. She tells me that she had seen you go out, sir, and that she went to the concierge, as you supposed, to discover where you had gone, for she thought, she says, that your door was locked." The corners of the Girl's mouth quivered in a smile. "I trust that she would not have trespassed when you were gone, even if your door _was_ open. Until I heard her shriek but now, I had no idea that she would pursue you. I regret for your sake that she disturbed you, but I also regret for her sake that it was not found." Cartaret had guessed the answer to his question before he asked it. His cheeks burned for the consequences, but he put the query: "What was lost?" he inquired. "Ah, I thought that I had said it: a flower." "A--a rose?" The hand that held her kimono pressed a little closer to her breast. "Then you have found it?" Mountain-peaks and glaciers in the sun: Cartaret, being a practical man, was distinctly aware of not wanting her to know the present whereabouts of that flower. He fenced for time. "Was it a rose?" he repeated. "Yes," she said, "the Azure Rose." "What?" Perhaps, after all, he was wrong. "I've never heard of a blue rose." "It is not blue," she said; "we call it the azure rose as you, sir, would say the rose of azure, or the rose of heaven. We call it the azure rose because it grows only in our own land, where the mountains are blue, and only high, high up on those mountains, near to the blue of the sky. It is a white rose." "Yes. Of course," said Cartaret. "A white rose." He stood uncertainly before her. For a reason that he would have hesitated long to define, he hated to part with that rose; for a reason concerning which he was quite clear, he did not want to produce it there and then. "You have it?" asked The Girl. "Er--do you want it?" countered Cartaret. A shade of impatience crossed her face. She tried to master it.