"And then, of course, I wouldn't say who it was. And he sent for my aunts. Aunt Enid's worse than Aunt Loo. And they bothered and bothered. And at last I said it was the piano-tuner. I don't know how I could have. Father turned him off, of course, poor wretch, and they brought me down here to come to my senses. Aunt Loo never saw the miserable piano-tuner, and she thinks you're him. So now you know. And that's why they're taking me away from here. They think the piano-tuner is pursuing me. I believe Aunt Loo thinks you trained the dog to bark at horses so as to get a chance to speak to me."
"Do you care much for your father?" he asked, "or for any of them?"
"It's a horrid thing to say," she answered, "but I don't. The only one I care for's Aunt Alice—she's an invalid and a darling. Father thinks about nothing but bridge and races, and Aunt Loo's all golf and horses, and Aunt Enid's a social reformer. I hate them all. And I've never been anywhere or seen anything. I'm not allowed to write to any one. And they don't have any one here at all, and I'm not to see a single soul till I've come to my senses, as they call it. And that's why I was so glad to talk to you yesterday."
"I see," he said, very kindly. "Now what can I do for you? Where's the other man? Can't I post a letter to him or something? Why doesn't he come and rescue you?"
"What other man?" she asked.
"The man you're fond of. The man whose name you wouldn't tell them."
"Oh," she said, lightly, and just as though it didn't matter. "There isn't any other man."
"There isn't?" he echoed, joyously.
"No, of course not. I just made him up—and then I called him the piano-tuner."