He smiled faintly, and wiped his forehead with a large white handkerchief.
"If I should go to America," he observed, "I should greatly desire to visit the locality where women like you live and die unmarried."
"Oh, for that matter, you can't miss them," I replied laughingly: "they're common from Maine to California. Spinsterhood is an outgrowth of our Declaration of Independence—'liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'"
"But, really, I desire to know the name of the place where you live: I am sure it will interest me greatly. Will you not write it for me?" And he offered me a blank card.
"Oh, certainly, but I don't understand why."
"I may possibly go and see your aunt Edith and tell her I saw you on the top of a mountain. Perhaps you would like to send her a message?"
"Well, if you see her," I replied in the same tone, moving away, "tell her I haven't forgotten to beware of foreigners."
"Just one more word," he entreated, following me. "Is your aunt Edith, Edith Mack?"
"Yes, but how should you know?" and in that moment it flashed upon my mind like sudden daybreak. "And you are—" I stammered.
"A man who has loved her many a year. To-morrow I leave Vienna for England, to sail for New York. I cannot say more to you now than that I begin to see my way through a sad, sad mystery. Here is my card. Adieu!"