"That is her house," said Phil, later on, as the two strolled slowly down the Avenue Louise. They were across the street from the Garrison home, and the shadowy-trees hid them. The tall lover knew, however, that the Italian was with her and that his willfulness of the afternoon had availed him naught. Nor could he recall a single atom of hope and encouragement his bold act had produced other than the simple fact that she had submitted as gracefully as possible to the inevitable and had made the best of it.
"Ugo has the center of the stage, and everybody else is in the orchestra, playing fiddles of secondary importance, while Miss Dorothy is the lone and only audience," reflected Dickey.
"I wish you'd confine your miserable speculations to the weather, Dickey," said the other, testily.
"With pleasure. To-morrow will be a delightful day for a drive or a stroll. You and I, having nothing else to do, can take an all-day drive into the country and get acquainted with the Belgian birds and bees--and the hares, too."
"Don't be an ass! What sort of a game do you think those Italians were up to this evening? I'm as nervous as the devil. It's time for the game to come to a head, and we may as well expect something sudden."
"I think it depends on the prince. If he finds that you haven't torn down his fences while you had full sway, he'll not be obliged to go on with the game. He was merely protecting interests that absence endangered. Now that he's here, and if all is smooth and undisturbed--or, in other words, if you have failed in your merciless design to put a few permanent and unhealable dents in the fair lady's heart--he will certainly discharge his cohorts and enjoy very smooth seas for the rest of the trip. If you have disfigured her tender heart by trying to break into it, as a safe-blower gets into those large, steel things we call safety deposit vaults--where other men keep things they don't care to lose--I must say that his satanic majesty will be to pay. Do you think you have made any perceptible dents, or do you think the safe is as strong and as impregnable as it was when you began using chisels and dynamite on it six weeks ago?"
"I can't say that I enjoy the simile, but I'm conceited enough to think it is not as free from dents as it was when I began. I'm not quite sure about it, but I believe with a little more time and security against interference I might have--er--have--''