vidently arranged previously in anticipation of this
_tete-a-tete_.

"Ye know," he finally began, after they were seated and he had sat
some minutes staring at the girl, "ye know, you're deucedly clevah,
Miss Carmen! I told mother so to-day, and this time she had to agree.
And that about your being an Inca princess--ye know, I could see that
from the very first day I met you. Mighty romantic, and all that,
don't ye know!"

"Indeed, yes!" replied the girl, her thought drifting back to distant
Simiti.

"And all about that mine you own in South America--and Mrs.
Hawley-Crowles making you her heiress--and all that--bah Jove!
It's--it's romantic, I tell you!" His head continued to nod emphasis
to his thought long after he finished speaking.

"Ye know," he finally resumed, drawing a gold-crested case from a
pocket and lighting a monogrammed cigarette, "a fellow can always tell
another who is--well, who belongs to the aristocracy. Mrs. Ames, ye
know, said she had some suspicions about you. But I could see right
off that it was because she was jealous. Mother and I knew what you
were the minute we clapped eyes on you. That's because we belong to
the nobility, ye know."

He smoked in silence for some moments. Carmen was far, far away.

"Bah Jove, Miss Carmen, I'm going to say it!" he suddenly blurted.
"Mother wanted me to marry Lord Cragmont's filly; but, bah Jove, I
say, I'm going to marry you!"

Carmen now heard, and she quickly sat up, her eyes wide and staring.
"Marry me!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," he went on. "Oh, it's all right. You're a princess, ye know,
and so you're in our class. I'm not one of the kind that hands out a
title to the red-nosed daughter of any American pork packer just to
get her money. Not me! The girl I marry has got to be my equal."

"Oh!" murmured the astonished Carmen.

"It's all right for you to have money, of course. I won't marry a
pauper, even if she's a duchess. But you and I, Miss Carmen, are just
suited to each other--wealth and nobility on each side. I've got
thirty thousand good British acres in my own right, bah Jove!"

By now Carmen had fully recovered from her surprise. She reflected a
moment, then determined to meet the absurd youth with the spirit of
levity which his audacity merited. "But, Reginald," she said in mock
seriousness, "though your father was a duke, how about your mother?
Was she not just an ordinary American girl, a sister of plain Mrs. J.
Wilton Ames? Where's