And now, perfectly conscious of the irregularity of the proceedings, perhaps a trifle exhilarated by it, she permitted curiosity to stir behind the curtain, ready for the proper cue.
"Of course," he said, colouring, "I know you perfectly well by sight——"
"And I you, monsieur—perfectly well. One notices strangers, particularly when reading so frequently about them in romance. This book"—she opened it leisurely and examined an illustration—"appears to describe the American quite perfectly. So, having read so much about Americans, I was a trifle curious to see one."
He did not know what to say; her youthful face was so innocent that suspicion subsided.
"That American you are reading about is merely a phantom of romance," he said honestly. "His type, if he ever did exist, would become such a public nuisance in Europe that the police would take charge of him—after a few kings and dukes had finished thrashing him."
"I do not believe you," she said, with a hint of surprise and defiance. "Besides, if it were true, what sense is there in destroying the pleasure of illusion? Romance is at least amusing; reality alone is a sorry scarecrow clothed in the faded rags of dreams. Do you think you do well to destroy the tinted film of romance through which every woman ever born gazes at man—and pardons him because the rainbow dims her vision?"
She leaned back against the silver birch once more and laid her white hand flat on the open pages of the book:
"Monsieur, if life were truly like this, fewer tears would fall from women's eyes—eyes which man, in his wisdom, takes pains to clear—to his own destruction!"
She struck the book a light blow, smiling up at him:
"Here in these pages are spring and youth eternal—blue skies and roses, love and love and love unending, and once more love, and the world's young heart afire! Close the book and what remains?" She closed the covers very gently. "What remains?" she asked, raising her blue eyes to him.