"You are the daughter of the American minister, and Miss Yuki is under the protection of Prince Hagané. It's the bother of marriage. You must see that she can never marry Le Beau. The worst of it all is that Le Beau's such an ass!" "I don't consider my friend, Mr. Le Beau, an--er--animal," said Gwendolen, all the more stiffly that her statement was not quite true. "I beg your pardon," said her companion, meekly, and relapsed into careful silence. Gwendolen fidgeted. This did not suit her mood at all. She wanted to quarrel. "Yuki and Pierre are frantically in love, poor things! But of course an incipient diplomat doesn't take into consideration anything so trivial as--love." Dodge smiled into her petulant eyes, a sort of elder-brother smile that stung her. "If I am the incipient referred to, you have missed your mark." "You pretend to be Pierre's friend, but you never did like him." "When have I pretended?" "You are jealous because he is so good-looking. All men are that way." "Aren't girls sometimes that way too?" asked he, with elaborate innocence. The shot told. She reddened angrily. "You are very disagreeable this morning, Mr. Dodge." Again fell silence. "Come," said the girl, changing her tactics swiftly. "It is I who am beastly, I know it. I'm going to try now to be good. Tell me honestly, as a friend, do you think that Pierre has absolutely no chance of marrying Yuki?" Dodge studied the restless eyes for sincerity before he answered. "He has a chance. If she is willing to throw over her parents, her Emperor, and her native land, in order to run away to him,--they may find protection. But if I know Japanese character at all, Miss Yuki would die first--and she ought to. The one decent thing for Le Beau is to release her." "But to run away, by night perhaps, in actual danger of her life--oh, how romantic!" sighed Gwendolen, clasping her hands. It was done to irritate, and it succeeded. "Romantic? Damfoolic!" sniffed Dodge, before he could stop himself. "Mr. Dodge!" "By George, it slipped out! I beg your pardon, Miss Todd, I should not have said it." "For what do you ask pardon--the expression, or the thought?" "The expression, of course. I was a mucker to use it in your presence." "Am I to understand that the thought underlying your remarkable utterance is unchanged?" "Why, er--that such a step would be foolish, and--er--unworthy?" stammered the wretched youth, now as greatly disconcerted as even Gwendolen could wish; "why, of course I still think it. I have to think it!" "I approved of it openly. I demand retraction of the thought also." Gwendolen's chance had come. Here was a bone,--a flimsy cartilage, it is true, but still a thing to pick her quarrel over. In the making-up she might find compensation for other recent chagrins. Gwendolen liked to make up. The magnanimous yielding, the condescension on her part, added to the humble gratitude of the recipient, brought a sense of pleasant power.