"That is a real tribute," she said demurely, and took her place beside me. Together we crossed the courtyard.
On the steps Colingraft Titus was standing. I uttered an audible groan and winced as if in dire pain.
"What is it?" she cried quickly.
"Rheumatism," I announced, carefully raising my right arm and affecting an expression of torture. I am not a physical coward, kind reader. The fact that young Mr. Titus carried in his hands a set of formidable looking boxing-gloves did not frighten me. Heaven knows, if it would give him any pleasure to slam me about with a pair of gloves, I am not without manliness and pluck enough to endure physical pain and mental humiliation. It was diplomacy, cunning, astuteness,—whatever you may choose to call it,—that stood between me and a friendly encounter with him. Two minutes' time would serve to convince him that he was my master, and then where would I be? Where would be the prestige I had gained? Where my record as a conqueror? "I must have caught cold in my arms and shoulders," I went on, making worse faces than before as I moved the afflicted parts experimentally.
"There!" she exclaimed ruefully. "I knew you would catch cold. Men always do. I'm so sorry."
"It's nothing," I made haste to explain:—"that is, nothing serious. I'll get rid of it in no time at all." I calculated for a minute. "A week or ten days at the most. Good morning, Colingraft."
"Morning. Hello, sis. Well?" He dangled the gloves before my eyes.
My disappointment was quite pathetic. "Tell him," I said to the Countess.
"He's all crippled up with rheumatism, Colly," she said. "Put those ugly things away. We're going in to breakfast."
He tossed the gloves into a corner of the vestibule. I felt a little ashamed of my subterfuge in the face of his earnest expression of concern.