“Your name is Veyze,” answered the girl, dimpling. “You’re English. You’re awfully English! You’re as English as—as yourself.”
“Happy coincidence! Mayn’t I have more than one name?”
“A full allowance. Sir Montrose Veyze, of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire.”
“I say! Then I’ve come into the title.”
“Quite a while ago. What you were before your succession, you know better than I.”
He caught the point. “Rodney Carteret, at your service,” he replied. “Here on a short stay. Diplomatic affairs.”
“Well, Mr. Carteret, I’ll remember you forever, for helping me out of an awful scrape. It must seem dreadfully flitter-headed and bad taste and ill-bred—”
“I can imagine you being flitter-headed—odd words you Americans use—but I really can’t conceive of you doing anything ill-bred or in bad taste,” said he with such sincerity that the girl flushed again.
“That’s nice of you,” she responded gratefully, “considering what I’ve done to you.” Thereupon she proceeded to repay his courtesy by a tissue of fabrications which did credit to her long practice in mendacity.
“You wouldn’t understand our American humor,” she wound up; “but I put up a joke on my friends in the other car by pretending I was to be married yesterday. I won’t bore you with the circumstances. I was going away for a trip all by my little self and they were to think it was my wedding trip. Who would have thought there could be such awful luck as to find them on my train? And me without a ghost of a husband to show on my honeymoon—until I grabbed you!”