"A strong and very liberal-minded woman," returned Lafelle with emphasis. "I trust, as your spiritual adviser, Madam, I may express the hope that you are in no way influenced by her."

"Sir!" cried Carmen, who had bounded to her feet, her eyes ablaze, "Madam Beaubien is a n.o.ble woman!"

"My dear child!" Lafelle grasped her hand and drew her back into her chair. "You misunderstand me, quite. Madam Beaubien is a very dear friend of ours, and we greatly admire her strength of character. She certainly does not require your defense! Dear! dear! you quite startled me."

A few moments later he rose and offered his arms to his companions to lead them back to the hall. Delivering Carmen into the charge of the eagerly waiting Duke of Altern, Lafelle remarked, as he took leave of Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, "I trust you will permit me to talk with your beautiful ward to-morrow afternoon--alone." And when the lady interpreted the significance of his look, her heart beat rapidly, as she bowed her acknowledgment of abject submission.

"Bah Jove!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the young Duke, clutching Carmen. "Ye know, I was deucedly afraid you had gone home, or that Uncle Wilton had you.

Ye know, I think I'm jealous of him!"

Carmen laughed merrily at the fellow. His grotesque costume made him appear still more ridiculous.

"It's nothing to laugh at, Miss Carmen! It's a bally bore to have a regular mountain like him always getting in the way; and to-night I just made up my mind I wouldn't stand it any longer, bah Jove! I say, come on!"

He fixed his monocle savagely in his eye and strode rapidly toward the refreshment hall. Carmen went in silence. She heard his murmur of gratification when his gaze lighted upon the chairs and table which he had evidently arranged previously in antic.i.p.ation of this _tete-a-tete_.

"Ye know," he finally began, after they were seated and he had sat some minutes staring at the girl, "ye know, you're deucedly clevah, Miss Carmen! I told mother so to-day, and this time she had to agree.

And that about your being an Inca princess--ye know, I could see that from the very first day I met you. Mighty romantic, and all that, don't ye know!"

"Indeed, yes!" replied the girl, her thought drifting back to distant Simiti.

"And all about that mine you own in South America--and Mrs.

Hawley-Crowles making you her heiress--and all that--bah Jove!

It's--it's romantic, I tell you!" His head continued to nod emphasis to his thought long after he finished speaking.

"Ye know," he finally resumed, drawing a gold-crested case from a pocket and lighting a monogrammed cigarette, "a fellow can always tell another who is--well, who belongs to the aristocracy. Mrs. Ames, ye know, said she had some suspicions about you. But I could see right off that it was because she was jealous. Mother and I knew what you were the minute we clapped eyes on you. That's because we belong to the n.o.bility, ye know."

He smoked in silence for some moments. Carmen was far, far away.

"Bah Jove, Miss Carmen, I'm going to say it!" he suddenly blurted.

"Mother wanted me to marry Lord Cragmont's filly; but, bah Jove, I say, I'm going to marry you!"

Carmen now heard, and she quickly sat up, her eyes wide and staring.

"Marry me!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," he went on. "Oh, it's all right. You're a princess, ye know, and so you're in our cla.s.s. I'm not one of the kind that hands out a t.i.tle to the red-nosed daughter of any American pork packer just to get her money. Not me! The girl I marry has got to be my equal."

"Oh!" murmured the astonished Carmen.

"It's all right for you to have money, of course. I won't marry a pauper, even if she's a d.u.c.h.ess. But you and I, Miss Carmen, are just suited to each other--wealth and n.o.bility on each side. I've got thirty thousand good British acres in my own right, bah Jove!"

By now Carmen had fully recovered from her surprise. She reflected a moment, then determined to meet the absurd youth with the spirit of levity which his audacity merited. "But, Reginald," she said in mock seriousness, "though your father was a duke, how about your mother?

Was she not just an ordinary American girl, a sister of plain Mrs. J.

Wilton Ames? Where's the aristocracy there? Now on my side--"

"Now, Miss Carmen," cried the boy petulantly, "can't you see that, by marrying my father, my mother became enn.o.bled? Bah Jove, you don't understand! Were your parents both n.o.ble?"

"Indeed they were!" said Carmen. "They were both children of a king."

"You don't say!" he whispered, leaning far over the table toward her.

"Then we've simply _got_ to marry!"

"But," protested the girl, "in my country people love those whom they marry. I haven't heard a word of that from you."

"Now, I say!" he exclaimed. "I was just getting round to that. It was love that made me offer you my name and t.i.tle!"

"Yes? Love of what?"

"Why--you--of course!"

She laughed musically. "My dear Reginald, you don't love me. It is yourself that you love. You are madly in love, it is true; but it is with the young Duke of Altern."

"See here, you can't talk to me that way, ye know!" he flared out.

"Bah Jove, I'm offering to make you a d.u.c.h.ess--and I love you, too, though you may not think it!"

"Of course you love me, Reginald," said Carmen in gentle reply, now relinquishing her spirit of badinage; "and I love you. But I do not wish to marry you."

The young man started under the shock and stared at her in utter lack of comprehension. Was it possible that this unknown girl was refusing him, a duke? She must be mad!

"A--a--I don't get you, Miss Carmen," he stammered.

"Come," she said, rising and holding out a hand. "Let's not talk about this any more. We must go back to the hall. I do love you, Reginald, but not in the way that perhaps you would like. I love the real _you_; not the vain, foolish, self-adoring human concept, called the Duke of Altern. And the love I feel for you will help you, oh, far more than if I married you! Come."

"But--Miss Carmen!" He stood before her with mouth open.

"Yes, Reginald."

"I--I expected we'd be engaged--I told mother--"

"Very well, Reginald, we are engaged. Engaged in handling this little problem that has presented itself to you. Do you see? And I will help you to solve it in the right way. For you need help. Reginald dear, I didn't mean to treat your proposal so lightly. I am sorry. There, give me your hand. We're just awfully good friends, aren't we? And I do love you, more than you think."

Leaving the bewildered youth in the hall, Carmen fell afoul of the very conservative Mrs. Gannette, whose husband, suffering from a sense of nausea since the appearance of Ames as a King Vulture, had some moments before summoned his car and driven to his favorite club to flood his apprehensions with Scotch high-b.a.l.l.s.

"Ah, little sly-boots!" piped Mrs. Gannette, shaking a finger at Carmen. "I saw you with Reginald just now. I'm awfully wise about such things. Tell me, dear, when shall we be able to call you the d.u.c.h.ess of Altern? You lucky girl!"

Carmen's spirits sank, as, without reply, she submitted to the ba.n.a.l boredom of this bl.u.s.tering dame's society gabble. Mrs. Gannette hooked her arm into the girl's and led her to a divan. "It's a great affair, isn't it?" she panted, settling her round, unshapely form out over the seat. "Dear me! I did intend to come in costume. Was coming as a tomato. Ha! ha! Thought that was better adapted to my shape. But when I got the cloth form around me, do you know, I couldn't get through the door! And my unlovely pig of a husband said if I came looking like that he'd get a divorce." The corpulent dame shook and wheezed with the expression of her abundant merriment.

"Well," she continued, "it wasn't his threat that hindered me, goodness knows! A divorce would be a relief, after living forty years with him! Say, there goes young Doctor Worley. Speaking of divorce, he's just got one. It all came round through a joke. Billy Patterson dared him to exchange wives with him one evening when they were having a little too much gaiety at the Worley home, and the doctor took the dare. Ha! ha! The men swapped wives for two days. What do you think of that! And this divorce was the result. But Billy took his wife back.

He thought it was just a good joke. Kate Worley gets an alimony of fifty thousand per. But the doctor can stand it. Why, he has a practice of not less than two hundred and fifty thousand a year!"

"I supposed," murmured Carmen, "that amount of money is a measure of his ability, a proof of his great usefulness."

"Nothing of the kind," replied Mrs. Gannette. "He's simply in with the wealthy, that's all. Dear! dear! Do look at that fright over there!

It's Lizzie Wall. Now isn't she simply hideous! Those diamonds are nothing but paste! The hussy!"

Carmen glanced at the pale, slender woman across the hall, seated alone, and wearing a look of utter weariness.

"I'd like to meet her," she said, suddenly drawn by the woman's mute appeal for sympathy.