"That meant for a compliment?"
"Just as you take it. You were a self-willed little beggar, anyhow. Do you remember how shocked your mother was that night at the Grahams, when you came on their little stage as a boy?"
"I do, indeed. Poor mother! She must have been awfully worried by all this; and is still, of course. But Rosa has written to a friend in Switzerland and asked her to wire that I'm all right; and perhaps by this time she's had the message. It's horribly wicked, I suppose, but I declare I feel so vindictive that I could almost kill that woman Gretchen and von Erstein too, when I think of what they've made poor mother suffer by stopping my letters."
"He's a low-down swine; and if I get half a chance, I'll even things up with him before we leave. But we don't want to talk about him now. If your mother's got that wire, she'll feel heaps better. Now, tell me what you think of my third wheel?"
"Shall I tell you the truth?"
"Of course."
She paused and the colour crept slowly into her face, robbing it of the worried anxiety which had so distressed me and making her as bewitchingly pretty as ever in my eyes. "If you will have the truth I'd—I'd like the third wheel better than either of the others."
"Same here; but it wouldn't be so safe. We'll have the props with us, however, in case of mishaps. What say you?"
"Carried unanimously," she cried enthusiastically. "It would be lovely!"
"You haven't changed much, then, even with all this."