"Oh, I just had a fool idea maybe you might be French."
"Perhaps I am, y' know. I'm not reahlly English," she said, blandly.
"Why--uh--"
"What made you think I was French? Tell me; I'm interested."
"Oh, I guess I was just--well, it was almost make-b'lieve--how you had a castle in France--just a kind of a fool game."
"Oh, don't be ashamed of imagination," she demanded, stamping her foot, while her voice fluttered, low and beautifully controlled, through half a dozen notes. "Tell me the rest of your story about me."
She was sitting on the rail above him now. As he spoke she cupped her chin with the palm of her delicate hand and observed him curiously.
"Oh, nothing much more. You were a countess--"
"Please! Not just `were.' Please, sir, mayn't I be a countess now?"
"Oh yes, of course you are!" he cried, delight submerging timidity. "And your father was sick with somepun' mysterious, and all the docs shook their heads and said `Gee! we dunno what it is,' and so you sneaked down to the treasure-chamber--you see, your dad--your father, I should say--he was a cranky old Frenchman--just in the story, you know. He didn't think you could do anything yourself about him being mysteriously sick. So one night you--"
"Oh, was it dark? Very very dark? And silent? And my footsteps rang on the hollow flagstones? And I swiped the gold and went forth into the night?"
"Yes, yes! That's it."
"But why did I swipe it?"
"I'm just coming to that," he said, sternly.
"Oh, please, sir, I'm awful sorry I interrupted."
"It was like this: You wanted to come over here and study medicine so's you could cure your father."
"But please, sir," said the girl, with immense gravity, "mayn't I let him die, and not find out what's ailing him, so I can marry the maire?"
"Nope," firmly, "you got to--Say, gee! I didn't expect to tell you all this make-b'lieve.... I'm afraid you'll think it's awful fresh of me."
"Oh, I loved it--really I did--because you liked to make it up about poor Istra. (My name is Istra Nash.) I'm sorry to say I'm not reahlly"--her two "reallys" were quite different--"a countess, you know. Tell me--you live in this same house, don't you? Please tell me that you're not an interesting Person. Please!"
"I--gee! I guess I don't quite get you."
"Why, stupid, an Interesting Person is a writer or an artist or an editor or a girl who's been in Holloway Jail or Canongate for suffraging, or any one else who depends on an accident to be tolerable."