Perhaps she was, at the moment, just the merest shade too evidently the
American girl. "I hope the impression is one which will change when you
know me better."
"Am I to have that pleasure?"
"I intend to ask your father if I may call upon you."
Susie gasped again. She felt that she was being swept beyond her depth
by a current which she was powerless to resist; that she was beating
with bare hands against a wall of incredible height and thickness--the
wall of Old World convention, of class imperturbability. And she felt a
little frightened, for almost the first time in her life.
"Do," she said faintly, realising that her companion was waiting for her
to speak.
"I think that I shall like him," he added.
"Oh, do you know him?"
"'I was looking at him last night at dinner," he explained, calmly. "He
seems a very interesting man. I looked at all of you a great deal--more
than was perhaps quite polite. I feared you had perceived it."
"No," murmured Susie, desperately, telling a white lie.
"Tellier told me you were Americans--but I should have known it anyway."
"Tellier!" she repeated, turning upon him fiercely, welcoming the
opportunity to create a diversion. "Then he _was_ your emissary! And to
think that I defended you!"
"My emissary?" he stammered. "Defended me?"
"Yes, when--when--some one said you had sent him to us--"
"Sent him to you!" he cried, flushing darkly.
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