“It is surely not retrogression.”
“God knows what it is,” said Nick, helplessly, “but it's got to stop. I have sent her an ultimatum.”
“A what?”
“A summons. Her father and mother are going to the Bertrands' to-night, and I have written her a note to meet me in the garden. And you,” he cried, rising and slapping me between the shoulders, “you are to keep watch, like the dear, careful, canny, sly rascal you are.”
“And—and has she accepted?” I inquired.
“That's the deuce of it,” said he; “she has not. But I think she'll come.”
I stood for a moment regarding him.
“And you really love Mademoiselle Antoinette?” I asked.
“Have I not exhausted the language?” he answered. “If what I have been through is not love, then may the Lord shield me from the real disease.”
“It may have been merely a light case of—tropical enthusiasm, let us say. I have seen others, a little milder because the air was more temperate.”