"I should be very shocked, indeed, darling, if it were otherwise," was Froggy's answer.
And Priscilla breathed a long sigh of contentment. She knew that there was no need to explain herself to this, her oldest friend.
She laid her cheek comfortably against the great dog's ear.
"No, Romeo," she murmured. "Your missis isn't going to be thrown at any man's head if she knows it. But it's a difficult world, old boy; almost an impossible world, I sometimes think. Froggy, I know you can be sentimental when you try. What should you do if you fell in love with a total stranger without ever knowing his name? Should you have the fidelity to live in single blessedness all your life for the sake of your hero?"
Froggy looked a little startled at the question, lightly as it was put. She felt that it was scarcely a problem that could be settled offhand. And yet something in Priscilla's manner seemed to indicate that she wanted a prompt reply.
"It is a little difficult to say, dear," she said, after brief reflection. "I can understand that one might be strongly attracted towards a stranger, but I should think it scarcely possible that one could go so far as to fall in love."
"Perhaps you couldn't, Froggy," she admitted. "But you know there is such a thing as loving at first sight. Some people go so far as to say that all true love begins that way."
She rose quietly and went to her friend's side.
"Oh, Froggy, it's very difficult to be true to your inner self when you stand quite alone," she said, "and every one else is thinking what a fool you are!" The words had an unwonted ring of passion in them, and, having uttered them, she knelt down by Froggy's side, and hid her face against the ample shoulder. "And I sometimes think I'm a fool myself," she ended, in muffled accents.
Froggy's arms closed instantly and protectingly around her.
"My darling, who is it, then?" whispered her motherly voice.
Priscilla did not at once reply. It was a difficult confidence to make. At last, haltingly, words came:
"It was years ago--that summer we went to New York, Dad and I. He was from the South, so I heard afterwards. He stayed at the same hotel with us, one of those quiet, unobtrusive, big men--not big physically, but--you understand. I might not have noticed him--I don't know--but one day a man in the street threw down a flaming match just as I was coming out of the hotel. I had on a muslin dress, and it caught fire. Of course, it blazed in a moment, and I was terrified. Dad wasn't there. But the man was in the balcony just overhead, and he swung himself down, I never saw how, and caught me in his arms. He had nothing to put it out with. He simply threw me down and flung himself on the top, beating out the flames in all directions with his hands. I was dreadfully upset, of course, but I wasn't much hurt. He was--horribly. One of his hands was all charred.