"I am finding people out," she said to him. "You are the only one that
is young like me. Let us form an alliance--while the old ones are
working out all their plans and fighting it out among themselves."

"Fighting it out! I know some that are not likely to fight," cried Jock,
bewildered.

"Was not that right?" said the girl, distressed. "I thought it was an
_idiotisme_, as the French say. Ah! they are always fighting. Look at
them now! The Contessa, she is on the war-path. That is an American
word. I have a little of all languages. Madame, you will see--ah, that
is what you meant!--does not understand, she looks from one to another.
She is silent, but Sir Tom, he knows everything. And the old lady, she
sees it too. I have gone through so many dramas, I am blasee. It
wearies at last, but yet it is exciting too. I ask myself what is going
to be done here? You have heard perhaps of the Contessa in England,
Mr.----"

"Trevor," said Jock.

"And you pronounce it just like this--Mis-ter? I want to know; for
perhaps I shall have to stay here. There is not known very much about
me. Nor do I know myself. But if the Contessa finds for me---- I am quite
mad," said the girl suddenly. "I am telling you--and of course it is a
secret. The old lady watches the Contessa to see what it is she intends.
But I do not myself know what the Contessa intends--except in respect to
me."

Jock was too shy to inquire what that was: and he was confused with this
unusual confidence. Young ladies had not been in the habit of opening to
him their secrets; indeed he had little experience of these kind of
creatures at all. She looked at him as she spoke as if she wished to
provoke him to inquiry--with a gaze that was very open and withal bold,
yet innocent too. And Jock, on his side, was as entirely innocent as if
he had been a Babe in the Wood.

"Don't you want to know what she is going to do with me, and why she has
brought me?" the girl said, talking so quickly that he could scarcely
follow the stream of words. "I was not invited, and I am not introduced,
and no one knows anything of me. Don't you want to know why I am here?"

Jock followed the movements of her lips, the little gestures of her
hands, which were almost as eloquent, with eyes that were confused by so
great a call upon them. He could not make any reply, but only gazed at
her, entranced, as he had never been in his life before, and so anxious
not to lose the hurried words, the