f
health? Your rest in Switzerland has done you good, although it would
have been better for Austria had it been shorter. Shall we sit down?"

Two tall dignified bodies adjusted themselves to chairs both slippery
and bumpy. He had closed the door behind him.

"Now that the amenities are over, Excellenz," she said with the
briskness she had picked up from her American friends, "let us come to
the point. I infer you did not take a day's journey and put up with
this abominable hotel to tell me that you are forming a Federation of
Austria and the South German States. You were sometimes kind enough to
ask my help in the past, but I have no influence in Washington."

"No, dear Graefin. I do not need your assistance in Washington. But I
do need it in Austria, and that is why I am here."

"But it is--was--my intention to return to Austria almost immediately.
Surely Judge Trent must have told you."

"Yes, dear Graefin, he told me, but he also told me other things. I
shall not waste the little time at our disposal in diplomacy. He told
me that you have the intention to marry a young American." There was
the faintest accent on the _young_.

Mary was annoyed to feel herself flushing, but she answered coldly, "It
is quite true that I intend to marry Mr. Clavering."

"And I have come here to ask you to renounce that intention and to
marry me instead."

"You!" Mary almost rose from her chair. "What on earth do you mean?"

"My dear Marie." He renounced formalities abruptly. "I think you will
be able to recall that whether I wrapped my meaning in diplomatic
phrases or conveyed it by the blunter method, it was always
sufficiently clear to the trained understanding. I have never known a
more trained or acute understanding than yours. I wish you to marry
me, and I beg you to listen to my reasons."

She gave the little foreign shrug she had almost forgotten. "I will
listen, of course. Need I add that I am highly honored? If I were not
so astonished, no doubt I should be more properly appreciative of that
honor. Pray let me hear the reasons." Her tone was satirical, but she
was beginning to feel vaguely uneasy.

Neither her words nor her inflections ruffled the calm of that long
immobile face with its half-veiled powerful eyes.

"Let us avert all possible misunderstandings at the beginning," he said
suavely. "I shall not pretend that I have fallen in love with you
again, for although my gallantry prompts m