“From the first time I saw you, Hazel,” he said, “I have loved you. I am willing to wait, for I am certain that so great and pure a love as mine will be rewarded. All that I care to know is that you do not love another. Will you tell me?”
“I have never been in love in my life,” she replied, and he was quite satisfied. On the way home that night he purchased a steam yacht, and built a million-dollar villa on the Black Sea.
The next day Hazel Strong enjoyed one of the happiest surprises of her life—she ran face to face upon Jane Porter as she was coming out of a jeweler’s shop.
“Why, Jane Porter!” she exclaimed. “Where in the world did you drop from? Why, I can’t believe my own eyes.”
“Well, of all things!” cried the equally astonished Jane. “And here I have been wasting whole reams of perfectly good imagination picturing you in Baltimore—the very idea!” And she threw her arms about her friend once more, and kissed her a dozen times.
By the time mutual explanations had been made Hazel knew that Lord Tennington’s yacht had put in at Cape Town for at least a week’s stay, and at the end of that time was to continue on her voyage—this time up the West Coast—and so back to England. “Where,” concluded Jane, “I am to be married.”
“Then you are not married yet?” asked Hazel.
“Not yet,” replied Jane, and then, quite irrelevantly, “I wish England were a million miles from here.”
Visits were exchanged between the yacht and Hazel’s relatives. Dinners were arranged, and trips into the surrounding country to entertain the visitors. Monsieur Thuran was a welcome guest at every function. He gave a dinner himself to the men of the party, and managed to ingratiate himself in the good will of Lord Tennington by many little acts of hospitality.
Monsieur Thuran had heard dropped a hint of something which might result from this unexpected visit of Lord Tennington’s yacht, and he wanted to be counted in on it. Once when he was alone with the Englishman he took occasion to make it quite plain that his engagement to Miss Strong was to be announced immediately upon their return to America. “But not a word of it, my dear Tennington—not a word of it.”