"Oh," the old lady grimly commented. "Then I'd better go and take my rest at once." Mary could not make up her mind whether she should stay in the drawing-room until Pierre came or whether it would be wiser to let him interview her grandmother first. In the end she decided upon the latter course, and in great agitation of spirit she went upstairs to her own room where she tried to distract her thoughts by trying on several new dresses with which Lady Flower had insisted on replenishing her wardrobe, so that she should not carry an end-of-the-season air about her, the old lady had said. But the new dresses were incapable of keeping her from running out on the landing every few minutes to hear if the front door was being opened. It became impossible to remain in her room, and she went back to the drawing-room so that she might see Pierre first and warn him that her grandmother was likely to be difficult. At last Pierre arrived, looking trim and slim in a frock-coat. Mary was glad that he had dressed ceremoniously, for she knew how much importance Grandmamma attached to ceremony. "Oh, Pierre," she exclaimed. "I only wanted to see you for a moment just to advise you to talk in French to Lady Flower. She is half French herself, you know, and I'm sure it will all sound much better in your own language. It's not that you don't speak English perfectly, but you might make a slip in a foreign tongue. You might give quite a wrong impression." Pierre agreed with her about the wisdom of this, and then he took her in his arms. "_Ma bien aimée_," he whispered. "Will you give me courage with one kiss?" She fluttered upon his arms more lightly than a bird, more lightly than a moth, more lightly than a crimson leaf that is blown whispering along a window-pane. Then hearing her grandmother's step she fled from the room through the domed conservatory past the staring eyes of the pelargoniums and the pug-faced, toothless calceolarias. Twenty minutes later, Mary found Pierre gone and her grandmother reading _The Times_ as if she were trying to assure herself that normal life would continue in spite of a presumptuous young Frenchman, who without prospects asked for the hand of an heiress. "Although, considering what he is," said Lady Flower, "the young man behaved very well. I was able to show him at once how ridiculous it was that he should aspire to marry you." "But I love him," Mary interposed. "I have no doubt that at this moment you do love him. It is my business, dear child, to protect you against impulse."