She replied without turning: "How can I tell until I see him? I think it will be the hero. If not, it will be the earl."
"Hero?—earl?" repeated Ashton.
"Yes, whichever one Vievie leaves for me."
"What! Genevieve? Miss Leslie? She's not—Is she really coming home so soon?—when she had such a chance for a gay season in London?"
"Don't give yourself away. The London season is in summer."
"You don't say! Well, in England, then. Why didn't you write me?"
"I'm not running a correspondence-school or news agency, Mr.
Brice-Ashton."
"Oh, cut it, Dodie! Post me up, that's a good girl! What I've heard has been so muddled. This hero business, for a starter—what about it? I thought it was an English duke that chartered the steamer to rescue Genevieve."
"No, only the son of a duke,—James Scarbridge, the Right Honorable the
Earl of Avondale."
"My ante!"