"But the associations!"
"They will lock you up as a dangerous person." She let down the window and the cold night air rushed in. "Give it to me." He did so. She flung it far into the night. "There, that is better. Some day you will understand."
"I shall never understand anything in this country—What are you running away from?"
"A man with a red nose."
"A red nose? Are they so frightful here as all that?"
"This one is. He wants—to marry me."
"Marry you!"
"Yes; rather remarkable that any man should desire me as a wife, isn't it?"
He saw that she was ironical. Having nothing to say, he said nothing, but looked longingly at the vacant space beside her.
She rested her chin upon the sill of the window and gazed at the stars. A wild rush of the wind beat upon her face, bringing a thousand vague heavy perfumes and a pleasant numbing. How cleverly she had eluded the duke's police! What a brilliant idea it had been to use her private carriage key to steal into the carriage compartment long before the train was made up! It had been some trouble to light the lamps, but in doing so she had avoided the possible dutiful guard. He had peered in, but, seeing that the lamps were lighted, concluded that one of his fellows had been the rounds.