"Good easy man," quoth she. "Yes, I certainly supposed you were his tenant-in-fee, at the least. You have an air." And her bob of the head complimented him upon it. "Oh, we Marquises of Carabas!" cried John, with a flourish. She regarded him doubtfully. "Wouldn't you find yourself in a slightly difficult position, if the Prince or his family should suddenly turn up?" she suggested. "I? Why?" asked John, his blue eyes blank. "A young man boarding with the parroco for six francs a day—" she began. "Six francs fifty, please," he gently interposed. "Make it seven if you like," her ladyship largely conceded. "Wouldn't your position be slightly false? Would they quite realize who you were?" "What could that possibly matter? wondered John, eyes blanker still. "I could conceive occasions in which it might matter furiously," said she. "Foreigners can't with half an eye distinguish amongst us, as we ourselves can; and Austrians have such oddly exalted notions. You wouldn't like to be mistaken for Mr. Snooks?" "I don't know," John reflected, vistas opening before him. "It might be rather a lark." "Whrrr!" said Lady Blanchemain, fanning herself with her pocket-handkerchief. Then she eyed him suspiciously. "You're hiding the nine million other causes up your sleeve. It isn't merely the 'whole blessed thing' that's keeping an eaglet of your feather alone in an improbable nest like this—it's some one particular thing. In my time," she sighed, "it would have been a woman." "And no wonder," riposted John, with a flowery bow. "You're very good—but you confuse the issue," said she. "In my time the world was young and romantic. In this age of prose and prudence—is it a woman?" "The world is still, is always, young and romantic," said John, sententious. "I can't admit that an age of prose and prudence is possible. The poetry of earth is never dead, and no more is its folly. The world is always romantic, if you have the three gifts needful to make it so." "Is it a woman?" repeated Lady Blanchemain.
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