"Well, he's getting on famously," said Louis, "but I certainly did manage to upset him. I was afraid he wouldn't take the news well, but I didn't dream it would be as bad as that. I only supposed he would rant and tear his hair. I'm horribly sorry, for I'm actually getting a bit fond of the old gentleman, queer as he is." "Did he say anything more to you about it?" asked the Imp. I knew she couldn't resist asking that. I was crazy to, myself, but couldn't pluck up the courage. "Not another word," Louis replied. "I expected he'd say a whole dictionary full. He did start off once with a word or two, but evidently changed his mind. He hasn't even hinted at it since." This seemed a little queer, but we decided (after Louis had gone) that Monsieur was probably putting off the ordeal till he felt stronger. That would be entirely likely. So we told each other that by the next day Louis would probably know the whole strange truth. But the next day came and went, and Louis was just the same and nothing was changed, even at the end of a week. He told us that Monsieur had never so much as alluded to the subject again, and, for _his_ part, he was mighty glad that the affair had blown over. He said he was sure Monsieur would get used to the notion after a while. So time has passed, and things remain just as they were. We cannot imagine what has come over Monsieur,--Carol, the Imp, and myself, I mean. Why is he waiting? Why doesn't he tell Louis, as he said would have to? What does all this delay mean? But if everything remains outwardly the same, it is not so with the way we three _feel_ about things. I don't know if I can explain the strange change that has come over our feelings toward Louis and Monsieur and all that concerns them,--especially toward Louis. All our lives he has been just 'Louis Durant,' the nice boy who lived across the Green, who played with us from the time we were babies and studied with us in the same classes in school, who was just like our brother, except that he didn't live in the same house. We have always thought of him in the same way that we do of Dave. Now, however, everything is different. He _isn't_ 'Louis Durant' any more. He's some strange, unknown, long-way-off person, whose ancestors were monarchs of one of the greatest countries on earth, and who might have been a king himself, if things had gone a little differently. I simply _can't_ feel near to, and well-acquainted with, a person like that. Carol says she can't, either, and the Imp admits that she's felt so a good while longer than we have. It seems as if _our_ Louis had been taken away forever and a strange, unapproachable person had been put in his place. Not that Louis _himself_ acts any differently. He's exactly the same as ever, of course, and he's said a dozen times in the course of the last week: