Gwendolen's face sobered. "I've thought of that. You are right. It means a wider gulf; it ought to mean a wider gulf."
Pierre moved nearer the fire and spread his delicate hands to the flame. "Your tone, Mademoiselle," he began with a most pathetic attempt at lightness, "might imply that the gulf is already of sufficient width to admit despair."
Gwendolen threw back her head and looked at him from under long lashes. "I didn't say so," returned she.
"Speech is the least satisfactory form of intelligent communication," answered Pierre, still trying to smile himself and her into the delusion that he was but partly in earnest.
"Did you see the way that Yuki's father watched us all last night?" asked the girl, irrelevantly.
"No, I cannot say I bestowed much attention. Whenever possible, I keep my eyes from unpleasing objects."
"You do well, Pierre," asserted Mrs. Todd; "especially in this case. I was next him most of the time, and though I did not look, I have acquired neuralgia in the shoulder which was nearest him."
"He wasn't what one would call exactly—gushing," mused Gwendolen. She seated herself now, and fell into a sort of reverie, dropping her chin and catching it in one hand,—a gesture ludicrously like Mr. Todd. Pierre's glance into her face added, it would seem, to his uneasiness.
"I presume it is only war that has brought Prince Haganè to call so promptly," said he, tentatively, with a note of challenge in his voice.
Gwendolen gave a small sniff. "War! He may call it war,—but it is Yuki! Prince Haganè stands behind that old pickled samurai, Onda; I felt it last night. I tried to hint it to you then, but you were determined not to see." She rose to her feet again, and began to flutter near, in the fashion most disastrous to Mrs. Todd's always sensitive nerves.