“I ought to tell them on the mere chance that they would send you home,” I grumbled irritably. “You have no business here, you know, helping people and being suspected and pursued and outrageously annoyed by fools like me. Yes, and by other fools--and worse,” I added with feigned sulphurousness, indicated Van Blarcom. “Miss Falconer, would you mind glancing at the third man on the right--the dark man who is staring at us--and telling me whether or not you ever saw him before you sailed?” “I am sure I never did,” she declared, knitting puzzled brows; “and yet on the _Re d’Italia_ he insisted that we had met. It frightened me a little. I wondered whether or not he suspected something. And every time I see him he watches me in that same way.” I was thawing, despite myself. “There’s one other thing,” I ventured, “if you won’t think me too impertinent: Did you ever hear of a man named Franz von Blenheim?” “No,” she said blankly; “I never did. Who is he?” No birds out of that covert! If this was acting it was marvelous; there had not been the slightest flicker of confusion in her face. “Oh, he isn’t anybody of importance--just a man,” I evaded. “Look here, Miss Falconer, you’ll have to forgive me if you can. You shall stay in Paris, and I’ll be as silent as the grave concerning you; but I’d like to do more than that. Won’t you let me come and call? Really, you know, I’m not such a duffer as you have cause to think me. After we got acquainted you might be willing to trust me with this business, whatever it is. And then, if it’s not too desperate, I have friends who could be of help to you.” Such was the sop I threw to conscience, the bargain I struck between sober reason and the instinct that made me trust her against all odds. My theories must have been moonshine. Everything was all right, probably. But for the sake of prudence I ought to keep track of her. Besides, I wanted to. Gratitude and consternation, a most becoming mixture, were in her eyes. She drew back a little. “Oh, thank you, but that’s impossible,” she said uncertainly. “I have friends, too; but they can’t help me. Nobody can.” “Well,” I admitted sadly, “I know the rudiments of manners. I can recognize a conge, but consider me a persistent boor. Come, Miss Falconer, why mayn’t I call? Because we are strangers? If that’s it, you can assure yourself at the embassy that I am perfectly respectable; and you see I don’t eat with my knife or tuck my napkin under my chin or spill my soup.” Again that warm flush. “Mr. Bayne!” she exclaimed indignantly. “Did I need an introduction to speak to you on the ship, to ask unreasonable favors of you, to make people think you a spy? If you are going to imagine such absurd things, I shall have to--” “To consent? I hoped you might see it that way.”