"Lots," I said quickly.
"Oh, then it's really true that it is quite a usual thing among your country people, for a man to tell a girl he cares for her, when he has seen her only once?"
"I—er—really don't know about that," I answered, beginning to be disturbed in soul.
"You know only how it is with yourself?" Freule Menela murmured, with a girlish laugh that betrayed suppressed excitement. "Well, Mr. Starr, I think it would be foolish to pretend to misunderstand. I have heard much about you—perhaps you have heard a little of me?—yet you have taken me by storm. The thing I love best is art. You are a great artist—and you are a man of the world. You have all the fire of genius—and geniuses have a right to do things which other men may not do. I believe you have made me more interested in you, in these last two hours we have spent together, than I have been in any one else in as many years. And because of you, and what you have said—so delicately yet so unmistakably—I am going now to take your advice about Robert."
Before I could stop her, even if I had had the courage and presence of mind, she walked quickly away from me, and joined Phyllis and van Buren, who were sauntering a few yards ahead.
My brain whirled, and threatened to give way in the horror of the situation. I could have shouted aloud with the shrill intensity of a drowning man, "Alb, save me!" But Alb was far in front, strolling with the van Buren twins, while the one van Buren in whom he is really interested walked behind him with my temporary aunt. And in any case, he could have done nothing. Before my stunned wits had time to rebound, Phyllis the sweet and gentle had turned and flown to me, as if for refuge, like a homing dove threatened by a hawk.
"Brother dear," she whispered, "may I walk with you, please? Freule Menela says there is something she has been wanting all day to talk over with Mr. van Buren; so I thought I had better leave them alone, and drop behind with you—if you don't mind having me?"
"Mind!" I echoed in my turmoil of spirit. "It's a happy relief."
"I thought you seemed quite fascinated by Freule Menela," exclaimed the poor innocent one, "I asked Mr. van Buren if he were not jealous."
"How unkind of you!"