"Do you object if I stand a moment?" he said. "I feel so much more comfortable standing, especially when I am going to be scolded."
"Yes," she admitted, "I am going to scold you. Your conscience has warned you."
"On the contrary," he declared, "it has never been quieter. If I have offended; it is through ignorance."
"It is through charity, as usual," she said in a low voice. "If your conscience be quiet, mine is not. It is in myself that I am disappointed—I have been very selfish. I have usurped you. I have known it all along, and I have done very wrong in not relinquishing you before."
"Who would have shown me Paris?" he exclaimed.
"No," she continued, "you would not have been alone. If I had needed proof of that fact, I had it to-day—"
"Oh, Minturn," he interrupted; "think of me hanging about an Embassy and trying not to spill tea!" And he smiled at the image that presented.
Her own smile was fleeting.
"You would never do that, I know," she said gravely.
"You are still too modest, Peter, but the time has gone by when I can be easily deceived. You have a great reputation among men of affairs, an unique one. In spite of the fact that you are distinctly American, you have a wide interest in what is going on in the world. And you have an opportunity here to meet people of note, people really worth while from every point of view. You have no right to neglect it."