ied in your notion of
me," she said. "I have given you every reason to call me coquette,
flirt, or anything of that sort."

I raised my hand in protest.

"No, let me finish," she went on. "I have only myself to blame for it.
I was warned against you before I ever saw you; and, so, I tried to
play your own game from the start." (I hope I had the grace to blush;
I think I had.) "But the other night, somehow, the game got too fast
for me--and I--well, I bungled. But whether you believe me or not,
Major Dalberg, I want to say, as a solace to myself, at least, that you
are the only man who ever kissed my face."

I have smelled considerable powder in active service, and I think I may
say I have a fair amount of courage, but it had all oozed away before
the grieving tones and melting eyes of beauty in distress; and in
another moment I should have cut and run like the rankest coward. For,
what would you? A handsome woman (none I had ever seen, not even the
Princess, surpassed her) almost in tears beside you--and all because of
your own clumsy tongue and heavy sense.

I opened my mouth to speak; but the words did not come. In truth, my
brain would not act. I was vacant of ideas. And so she waited; while
our horses walked with heads together, friendly as old stable chums.
Then I found my tongue.

"My dear Lady Helen," I said, "I owe you an apology for what I did that
night."

"You owe me nothing," she broke in. "You know perfectly well that when
a woman is kissed in that way she has only herself to blame."

"But it takes two to make a bargain," I insisted; "and it was I who did
it."

"Tell me," she demanded, "tell me honestly; you didn't imagine I would
be angry?--you felt perfectly easy about it at the time?"

I bungled again, of course: I hesitated.

She laughed scornfully. "You have answered me, Major Dalberg."

"No," said I, "I have not. You were angry at the instant, though you
chose to act otherwise. I thought so, then; I am sure of it now."

A feeble smile touched her lips. "Confess, that you then thought the
anger only assumed."

"Didn't you act deliberately to make me think so?"

"After you had kissed me," she said, half defiantly, "what mattered it
if I played it on to the end?"

"And you did it beautifully," I agreed.

"So beautifully that you intimated I proposed playing it all over again
with your friend Courtney."

"You wrong me there," I objected.

She shrugged her shoulders.