"Thank you," retorted Susie, gasping a little. "You have honoured us, I see, with a very careful study. I can respond by saying that there is in your manner a certain freshness which I do not like," and she shot him a fiery glance. At the moment, he was rather too evidently the Prince.
"I am sorry you find me displeasing," he said, looking at her gravely.
Perhaps she was, at the moment, just the merest shade too evidently the
American girl. "I hope the impression is one which will change when you
know me better."
"Am I to have that pleasure?"
"I intend to ask your father if I may call upon you."
Susie gasped again. She felt that she was being swept beyond her depth by a current which she was powerless to resist; that she was beating with bare hands against a wall of incredible height and thickness—the wall of Old World convention, of class imperturbability. And she felt a little frightened, for almost the first time in her life.
"Do," she said faintly, realising that her companion was waiting for her to speak.
"I think that I shall like him," he added.
"Oh, do you know him?"
"'I was looking at him last night at dinner," he explained, calmly. "He seems a very interesting man. I looked at all of you a great deal—more than was perhaps quite polite. I feared you had perceived it."
"No," murmured Susie, desperately, telling a white lie.