“Well, then, Mr. Thorold, there’s something wrong with my fine, daring eyes. I’m just the last girl in all America to do anything--rash. Why! if I did anything rash, I’m sure I should feel ever afterwards as if I wanted to be excused off the very face of the earth. I’m that sort of girl. Do you think I don’t know that father will give way? I guess he’s just got to. With time and hammering, you can knock sense into the head of any parent.” “I apologise,” said Cecil, both startled and convinced. “And I congratulate Mr. Vaux-Lowry.” “Say. You like Harry, don’t you?” “Very much. He’s the ideal type of Englishman.” Geraldine nodded sweetly. “And so obedient! He does everything I tell him. He is leaving for England to-night, not because father asked him to, but because I did. I’m going to take mother to Brussels for a few days’ shopping--lace, you know. That will give father an opportunity to meditate in solitude on his own greatness. Tell me, Mr. Thorold, do you consider that Harry and I would be justified in corresponding secretly?” Cecil assumed a pose of judicial gravity. “I think you would,” he decided. “But don’t tell anyone I said so.” “Not even Harry?” She ran off into the Kursaal, saying she must seek her mother. But instead of seeking her mother, Geraldine passed straight through the concert-hall, where a thousand and one wondrously attired women were doing fancy needle-work to the accompaniment of a band of music, into the maze of corridors beyond, and so to the rear entrance of the Kursaal on the Boulevard van Isoghem. Here she met Mr. Harry Vaux-Lowry, who was most obviously waiting for her. They crossed the road to the empty tramway waiting-room and entered it and sat down; and by the mere act of looking into each other’s eyes, these two--the stiff, simple, honest-faced young Englishman with “Oxford” written all over him, and the charming child of a civilisation equally proud, but with fewer conventions, suddenly transformed the little bureau into a Cupid’s bower. “It’s just as I thought, you darling boy,” Geraldine began to talk rapidly. “Father’s the least bit in the world scared; and when he’s scared, he’s bound to confide in someone; and he’s confided in that sweet Mr. Thorold. And Mr. Thorold has been requested to reason with me and advise me to be a good girl and wait. I know what _that_ means. It means that father thinks we shall soon forget each other, my poor Harry. And I do believe it means that father wants me to marry Mr. Thorold.” “What did you say to him, dear?” the lover demanded, pale. “Trust me to fool him, Harry. I simply walked round him. He thinks we are going to be very good and wait patiently. As if father ever _would_ give way until he was forced!” She laughed disdainfully. “So we’re perfectly safe so long as we act with discretion. Now let’s clearly understand. To-day’s Monday. You return to England to-night.” “Yes. And I’ll arrange about the licence and things.”