“No.”
“That's all I want to know. I can always tell by a girl's eyes whether she is stubborn.”
“I am not stubborn.”
“Well, I'll drop the matter for all time. Doubtless you were right when you said it was nonsense; you ought to know. Changing the subject, I think I'll like Brussels if I stay here long enough.” He was again nonchalant, indifferent. Under her mask of unconcern she felt a trifle piqued that he did not persist in his endeavor to learn the contents of the unfortunate letter.
“How long do you expect—I mean purpose to stay?” she asked.
“It depends on conditions. I may be crazy enough to stay six weeks and I may be crazy enough to go away next week. You see, I'm not committing myself to any specified degree of insanity; it won't make so much difference when I am found out, as you say. At present, however, I contemplate staying until that affair at St. Gudule.”
She could not hide the annoyance, the discomfiture, his assertion inspired. In a second she saw endless unpleasantries—some pleasantries, it is fair to say—and there seemed to be no gentle way of escape. At the same time, there came once more the queer flutter she had felt when she met him in the street, a half-hour before.
“You will find it rather dull here, I am afraid,” she found courage to say. “Or do you know many people—the American minister, perhaps?”
“Don't know a soul here but you and Mrs. Garrison. It won't be dull—not in the least. We'll ride and drive, go ballooning or anything you like—”
“But I can't, Phil. Do you forget that I am to be married in six weeks?” she cried, now frightened into an earnest appeal.