“DEAR JERRY: You must not come. I have told you that I could not marry you, but I blame myself because I spoke that time in the Spring with some uncertainty. It is not only the objections now. There is another reason that did not then exist. Please do not question me; and please forgive me for any pain that I may cause you, but it is someone else that I love. I did not know what love was when you asked me. You must marry some girl of your own race, dear Jerry, and be happy. I shall never leave France now. “Your friend, “ALIX.” Giles read, and his heart stood still while brightly, balefully the fox-seraph visage of André de Valenbois rose before him. Alix’s letter was dated from Vaudettes-sur-Mer. Jerry was watching him. “Now isn’t that rather thick,” he said. But Giles, gazing at the letter, found no reply. “It must, of course, be some Frenchman,” said Jerry. “Can you imagine who it is? Have you heard anything at all?” Giles shook his head. “Does her mother know any decent men?” Jerry inquired. Giles folding the letter tried to think. Were they decent men? Judged by the world’s standards, André de Valenbois was as decent as Jerry himself. The difference was that he would not be decent for Alix. “Yes,” he said, then, slowly. “I suppose they are quite decent. Only Frenchmen are different, you know.” He felt Jerry scanning his face. “You mean that no decent Frenchman would think of marrying her?” At this Giles felt as if he clutched Alix back from a danger. She might have betrayed herself to him; he could not bear to see her betrayed to Jerry. “She may marry someone quite decent, you see, but not of her own class. Some nice young artist, for instance, some _savant_. Her mother knows all sorts of interesting people.” “But she doesn’t say anything about marrying,” Jerry persisted. “It doesn’t somehow sound like getting married, does it? She’d tell his name if it was that.” “Well, I don’t know. Not at once; not to you, so soon. It may be only coming on between them. Nothing definite may yet have been said.” “I didn’t know French girls were allowed to have things come on,” said Jerry. “I thought it was arranged for them.” “But we may have changed Alix about all that,” said Giles. Jerry at this was silent. He sat on the table and swung his leg. The letter lay beside him where Giles had put it, and after a little while he picked it up and read it over again. “Do you think she’s telling the truth?” he then questioned. “Isn’t it still possible that it’s all her pride? If Mummy could have written to say I was coming and that she gave me her blessing—mightn’t it have been different?”