The next day when they arrived Rupert was greeted with a frank smile of welcome.
"I am indeed glad to see you again, Monsieur Rupert; but tell me why was that little farce of pretending that we were strangers, played yesterday?"
"It was my doing, Adele," her father said. "You know what the king is. If he were aware that Rupert were an old friend of ours he would imagine all sorts of things."
"What sort of things, papa?"
"To begin with, that Monsieur Rupert had come to carry you off from the various noblemen, for one or other of whom his Majesty destines your hand."
The girl coloured.
"What nonsense!
"However," she went on, "it would anyhow make no difference so far as the king is concerned, for I am quite determined that I will go into a convent and let all my lands go to whomsoever his Majesty may think fit to give them rather than marry any one I don't care for. I couldn't do it even to please you, papa, so you may be quite sure I couldn't do it to please the king.
"And now let me look at you, Monsieur Rupert. I talked to you last night, but I did not fairly look at you. Yes, you are really very little altered except that you have grown into a man: but I should have known you anywhere. Now, would you have known me?"
"Not if I had met you in the street," Rupert said. "When I talk to you, and look at you closely, Mademoiselle Adele Dessin comes back again; but at a casual glance you are simply Mademoiselle Adele de Pignerolles."