But for another instant Nona did not stir. Neither did she glance upward. Her eyes had dropped to her lap and were evidently fastened upon her slender hands, which she held lightly clasped together.
Possibly she had become a shade paler, but not by a flicker of an eyelash did she betray that her house of cards had suddenly fallen.
The next moment she gave her hand to Dick and got up.
"I am not tired, so let us walk on quickly if you think best. I am going to be honest and tell you, Dick, that I have never dreamed you were seriously interested in Barbara until this hour. I knew you were friends at one time and that Barbara had done a beautiful thing for you. But I thought you had probably quarreled, or that you did not find each other so interesting as you had at first."
The girl was walking along swiftly as she talked.
Her delicate chin was lifted a little higher than usual and because of her pallor her lips showed a deeper crimson. She was a lovely height and slender and graceful, but beyond everything else she had the air of perfect breeding.
Dick's own train of thought was diverted for a moment by a glance at her.
"After all, it is not an impossibility, Nona Davis' mother may turn out a foreign princess," he thought, and then smiled. For Dick was a typical American man and to him a mystery in one's family was ridiculous when it was not unpleasant.
On the train returning to Brussels neither he nor his companion cared to talk a great deal. Indeed, Nona frankly explained that there was something she wished to think about, and if Dick did not mind, would he please leave her alone. So he was satisfied to continue sympathetically silent.