Mrs. Masters sighed. There was a thought in her mind which had long been there. If Morgan and Anne could be brought to a fancy for each other, her problem in life would be settled. The girl would no longer be a charity child. But what she said was an amendment to the original thought. "Isn't he a bit inexperienced—and headstrong yet, to be turned loose alone in Europe?"
The Colonel's eyes twinkled. "I mean to have a check-rein on him."
"What fashion of check-rein, Cousin Tom?"
"I thought," said the lawyer off-handedly, since he always surrounded his beneficences with a show of the casual, "that it would be a good thing for Anne too. Now if you and she and Morgan made a European trip together, the responsibility of two ladies on his hands would steady the young scapegrace."
Mrs. Masters almost gasped in her effort to control her delighted astonishment. Morgan had always thought of Anne as a "kid" to be teased and badgered, and of himself as a very finished and mature young gentleman. Now they would see each other in a new guise. Their eyes might be opened. In short, the possibilities were immense.
"Your goodness to us—" she began feelingly, but the Colonel cleared his throat and raised a hand in defence against the embarrassment of verbal gratitude.
A month later the three sat in the salle-a-manger of the Elysée Palace Hotel, by a window that commanded a view of the Arc de Triomphe, and many things had happened. Among them was the surprising discovery by the young man, that while few eyes seemed concerned with him, many turned toward Anne, and having turned, lingered.
Only last night they had been to a dance, and Anne had been so occupied with uniforms that she had found no time to waltz with him—though he was sure that he danced circles about these stiff-kneed gentry with petty titles.
Now over the petit déjeuner he took his young and inconsiderate cousin to task.
"Last night, Anne, I camped on your trail all evening, and you couldn't manage to slip me in one dance. Nothing would do but goggling Britishers and smirking frog-eaters. I'm getting jolly well fed up with these foreigners."