At last there came a day of deliverance. The guests were departing and I can truthfully say that I was speeding them.
Elsie Hazzard took me off to a remote corner, where a little later on Betty Billy and the two husbands found us.
"John, will you ever forgive me?" she said very soberly. "I swear to you I hadn't the faintest idea what it—"
"Please, please, Elsie," I broke in warmly; "don't abuse yourself in my presence. I fully understand everything. At least, nearly everything. What I can't understand, for the life of me, is this: how did you happen to pick up two such consummate bounders as these fellows are?"
"Alas, John," said she, shaking her head, "a woman never knows much about a man until she has lived a week in the same house with him. Now you are a perfect angel."
"You've always said that," said I. "You did not have to live in the same house with me to find it out, did you?"
She ignored the question. "I shall never, never forgive myself for this awful week, John. We've talked it all over among ourselves. We are ashamed—oh, so terribly ashamed. If you can ever like us again after—"
"Like you!" I cried, taking her by the shoulders. "Why, Elsie Hazzard, I have never liked you and George half so much as I like you now. You two and the Smiths stand out like Gibraltars in my esteem. I adore all of you. I sha'n't be happy again until I know that you four—and no more—are coming back to Schloss Rothhoefen for an indefinite stay. Good Lord, how happy we shall be!"
I said it with a great deal of feeling. The tears rushed into her eyes.
"You are a dear, John," she sighed.