Part 3 (1/2)

”I won't have it!” she burst out. ”It would spoil everything. It would be like building one's own jail and employing one's own jailer.

I could n't stand that. I 'd rather be annoyed as I am than be annoyed by a chaperon.”

She was silent a moment, and then she exclaimed:

”Why, I'd almost rather marry Teddy! I'd feel freer--honestly, I think I 'd feel freer with a husband than a chaperon.”

”Oh, see here!” protested Monte. ”You must n't do that.”

”I don't propose to,” she answered quietly.

”Then,” he said, ”the only thing left is to go away where Teddy and the others can't find you.”

”Where?” she asked with interest.

”There are lots of little villages in Switzerland.”

She shook her head.

”And along the Riviera.”

”I love the little villages,” she replied. ”I love them here and at home. But it's no use.”

She smiled. There was something pathetic about that smile--something that made Covington's arm muscles twitch.

”I should n't even have the aid of the taxis in the little villages,”

she said.

Monte leaned back.

”If they only had here in Paris a force of good, honest Irish cops instead of these confounded gendarmes,” he mused.

She looked her astonishment at the irrelevant observation.

”You see,” he explained, ”it might be possible then to lay for Teddy H.

some evening and--argue with him.”

”It's nice of you, Monte, to think of that,” she murmured.

Monte was nice in a good many ways.

”The trouble is, they lack sentiment, these gendarmes,” he concluded.

”They are altogether too law-abiding.”

CHAPTER III

A SUMMONS