e kind
of place where the life isn't wide enough for the girl after all her
'advantages' and she goes abroad in search of adventure."

"Adventure," repeated Miss Falconer thoughtfully. She seemed to
have an idea, but Billy was certain it was not his idea.

He hastened to clarify the light he had tried to cast upon his
upsetting little countrywoman. "All life, you know, is an adventure
to the American girl," he generalized. "She is a little bit more on
her own than I imagine your girls are," and for the fraction of a
second his eyes wandered to the listening countenance of Lady
Claire, "and that rather exhilarates her. And she doesn't want
things cut and dried--she wants them spontaneous and unexpected--and
people, just as people, interest her tremendously. I think that's
why she's so unintelligible on the Continent," he added
thoughtfully. "They don't understand there that girlish love of
experience as experience--enjoyment of romance apart from results."

"Romance apart from results," repeated Miss Falconer in a peculiar
voice.

"I don't believe you quite get me," said Billy hastily. He felt
foolish and he felt resentful. And if these English women couldn't
understand the bright, volatile stuff that Arlee was made of, he
certainly was not going to talk about it. But Miss Falconer had one
more question for him.

"When you say big people in a small town do you mean her father
would be a sort of country squire?"

"More probably a captain of industry," Billy smiled.

"A captain--Oh, that is one of your phrases!"

"One of our phrases," he laughed, and then parried, "I thought you
were acquainted with Miss Beecher?"

"Quite slightly," said Miss Falconer in an aloof tone. "My brother
came over on the same ship with her--he came to join us here."

Billy experienced a flood of mental light. The brother--at the hotel
he had discovered that his name was Robert Falconer--was coming to
join his elder sister and her young charge. He had come on the same
steamer as Miss Beecher. Ergo, he was staying at the hotel where
Miss Beecher was and not with his sister. Billy comprehended the
anxiety of the lady with the Roman nose. He looked at Lady Claire
with a certain sympathy.

He caught her own eyes reconnoitering, and they each looked hastily
away.

Again Miss Falconer returned to her attack. "Then you really know
nothing positive of Miss Beecher's family?"

"Nothing in the world," said Billy cheerfully. "But why not as