"You little girl," I exclaimed—"oddly mature in some ways—a child in others—you may torment me and laugh at me now to your heart's content. Isn't laughter, after all, your heaven born privilege?"
"Why do you say that?"
"Oh, Thusis! Thusis! I am more convinced than ever of what I have half believed. Before I ever set eyes on you I had begun to care for you. Before I ever heard your voice I had begun to fall in love with you. Thusis—my Thusis—loveliest—most wonderful of God's miracles since Eden bloomed—you are The Laughing Girl!"
"Michael——"
"You are!"
Suddenly, as she walked lightly beside me, resting on my arm, she flung up her head with a reckless, delicious little laugh: "I am The Laughing Girl!"
A slight yet exquisite shock went clean through me as I realized that even to the instant of her avowal I had not been absolutely convinced of her identity with the picture.
"And I wish to tell you," she went on, her smile changing, "that when the photograph—which unhappily has become so notorious—was taken, I never dreamed that it would be stolen, reproduced in thousands, and sold in every city of Europe!"
"Stolen!"
"Certainly! Do you imagine that I would have permitted its publicity and sale? Never has such an exasperating incident occurred in my life! And I am helpless. I can't prevent it."