For a moment what she had said held no meaning for him. Then comprehension smote him like lightning; and, thunderstruck, he remained as he was without moving a muscle, still resting against her window-sill, his lean, sun-browned face illuminated under the zenith's fiery glory. "Who are you?" he said, under his breath. "Only an English girl who happened to have seen you in London." "When?" She turned deliberately and, resting one arm across the back of her chair, looked him steadily in the eyes. "I am twenty-five. Since I was twenty your face has been familiar to me." They exchanged a long and intent gaze. "I never before saw you," he said. "Perhaps." "_Have_ I?" "Who can know what a fashionable young man really looks at--through a monocle." "I don't wear it any more. I lost it out West," he said, reddening. "You lost your top hat once, too," she said. He grew red as fire. "So you've heard of that, too?" "I saw it." "You! Saw me attacked?" he demanded angrily, while the shame burnt hotter on his cheeks. "Yes. You ran like the devil." For a moment he remained mute and furious; then shrugged: "What was I to do?" "Run," she admitted. "It was the only way." He managed to smile. "And you were a witness to that?" She nodded, eyes remote, her teeth nipping at the velvet of her underlip. He, too, remained lost in gloomy retrospection for a while, but finally looked up with a more genuine smile. "I wonder whatever became of that fleet-footed girl who hung to my heels long after the more solidly constructed aristocracy gave up?" "Lady Diana Guernsey?" "That's the one. What became of her?" "Why do you ask?" "Because she gave me the run of my life. She was a good sport, that girl. I couldn't shake her off; I took to a taxi and she after me in another; my taxi broke down in the suburbs and I started across country, she after me. And the last I saw of her was just after I leaped a hedge and she was coming over it after me--a wonderful athletic young figure in midair silhouetted against the sky line. . . . That was the last I saw of her. I fancy she must have pulled up dead beat--or perhaps she came a cropper." "She did," said the girl in a low voice. "Is that so?" he said, interested. "Hope it didn't damage her." "She broke her thigh." "Oh, that's too bad!" he exclaimed. "If I'd guessed any such thing I'd have come back. . . . The poor little thing! I mean that, though she was nearly six feet, I seem to think of her as little--and, of course, I'm six--two and a half. . . . Good little sport, that Diana girl! She got over it all right, I hope." "It lamed her for life, Lord Marque." Shocked, for a moment he could find no words to characterise his feelings. Then: