"It depends on conditions. I may be crazy enough to stay six weeks
and I may be crazy enough to go away next week. You see, I'm not
committing myself to any specified degree of insanity; it won't make
so much difference when I am found out, as you say. At present,
however, I contemplate staying until that affair at St. Gudule."

She could not hide the annoyance, the discomfiture, his assertion
inspired. In a second she saw endless unpleasantries--some
pleasantries, it is fair to say--and there seemed to be no gentle way
of escape. At the same time, there came once more the queer flutter
she had felt when she met him in the street, a half-hour before.

"You will find it rather dull here, I am afraid," she found courage
to say. "Or do you know many people--the American minister,
perhaps?"

"Don't know a soul here but you and Mrs. Garrison. It won't be
dull--not in the least. We'll ride and drive, go ballooning or
anything you like--"

"But I can't, Phil. Do you forget that I am to be married in six
weeks?" she cried, now frightened into an earnest appeal.

"That's it, precisely. After that you can't go ballooning with
anybody but the prince, so for at least a month you can have a good
time telling me what a jolly good fellow he is. That's what girls
like, you know, and I don't mind in the least. If you want to talk
about him by the hour, I won't utter an objection. Of course, I
suppose you'll be pretty busy with your trousseau and so forth, and