“Blame Ken there. I suggested having Madeleine, but he said he wanted you all by yourself with nobody else around.” She turned to look at Ken as if to satisfy herself if this were truth or jesting, and then she smiled the merest trifle. “It is well,” she said, softly. “I’m on my way,” said Bert, arising. “Got a bridge game on at the Union.... _Bon soir, mademoiselle...._ And you, Ken, keep your feet on the ground.” “‘Keep your feet on the groun’,’” repeated Andree, when Bert was gone. “Oh, it mean nothing whatever. Thees English language, it is _très-drôle_. What is thees keep your feet on the groun’?” “It means that Bert agrees with Arlette that I need somebody to look after me,” he said, a bit ruefully. “It is well. Here am I—here—here.” She laughed that fairy laugh, and poked her finger toward the floor many times. “I am here, so he mus’ not be afraid. I shall look after you. Oh yes, I shall be mos’ firm and ver’ stern. You shall see.” And she made a tremendous face to show him what severity she was capable of. They went into the _salon_, with its absurd bronze statues, its tasteless gilt furniture, and its absurd little throne between the windows. Andree must observe herself closely before the huge glass above the fireplace and do little unnecessary things to her hair and touch her nose with a powder-puff. Ken watched her delightedly, and then carried her to her throne, where she sat dangling her tiny feet while he closed the heavy iron shutters to make it lawful for him to turn on the lights. Andree moved over to the sofa, looking up at him with that gravely curious expression which he saw so often on her face; she seemed to be wondering, always wondering, about something. Was it possible he was as strange, as unusual, as interesting to her as she was to him? He would have given much to know just what she was thinking, but, somehow, even then it was borne in upon him that he should never know—that she would always remain a sweet, bewildering, exotic mystery to him. “Sit by me—ver’ close,” she said; and he sat by her and took her in his arms, while she snuggled against him with the contented sigh of a child. “Do you love me?” he whispered. She nodded emphatically, and then with an upward glance said, as she always said, “And you?” “More than I can say.... _Toujours_—always. I shall always love you.” “It is well.... We shall make the pretense it is so—that you love me always. But the little moments, they are so sweet—well, dear friend, that they could not be always. Is it not so? If it could be always then I theenk God He would be jealous.... No.... But we mus’ pretend. We mus’ pretend there is no war, and that you shall never go to _Amérique_ again ... and leave me _solitaire_.”