ve supposed that he would say
anything.

"I know it would be very American, and all that, but I happen to be an
American, and it wouldn't be out of character for me. I suppose," he
appealed to Mrs. March, "that it's something I might offer to do if it
were from New York to Florida--and I happened to be going there? And I
did happen to be going to Holland."

"Why, of course, Mr. Kenby," she responded, with such solemnity that
March gave way in an outrageous laugh.

Kenby laughed, and Mrs. March laughed too, but with an inner note of
protest.

"Well," Kenby continued, still addressing her, "what I want you to do is
to stand by me when I propose it."

Mrs. March gathered strength to say, "No, Mr. Kenby, it's your own
affair, and you must take the responsibility."

"Do you disapprove?"

"It isn't the same as it would be at home. You see that yourself."

"Well," said Kenby, rising, "I have to arrange about their getting away
to-morrow. It won't be easy in this hurly-burly that's coming off."

"Give Rose our love; and tell Mrs. Adding that I'll come round and see
her to-morrow before she starts."

"Oh! I'm afraid you can't, Mrs. March. They're to start at six in the
morning."

"They are! Then we must go and see them tonight. We'll be there almost as
soon as you are."

March went up to their rooms with, his wife, and she began on the stairs:

"Well, my dear, I hope you realize that your laughing so gave us
completely away. And what was there to keep grinning about, all through?"

"Nothing but the disingenuous, hypocritical passion of love. It's always
the most amusing thing in the world; but to see it trying to pass itself
off in poor old Kenby as duty and humanity, and disinterested affection
for Rose, was more than I could stand. I don't apologize for laughing; I
wanted to yell."

His effrontery and his philosophy both helped to save him; and she said
from the point where he had side-tracked her mind: "I don't call it
disingenuous. He was brutally frank. He's made it impossible to treat the
affair with dignity. I want you to leave the whole thing to me, from this
out. Now, will you?"

On their way to the Spanischer Hof she arranged in her own mind for Mrs.
Adding to get a maid, and for the doctor to send an assistant with her on
the journey, but she was in such despair with her scheme that she had not
the courage to right herself when Mrs. Adding met her with the appeal:

"Oh, Mrs. March, I'm so glad yo