"I can't think why you haven't told me." He had straightened himself again, and there was something rather mournful in his look.

"I have no _fiancee_, little one," he said.
"No ?" Chris smiled all over her sunny face.

She looked the merest child standing before him wrapped in the mackintosh that flapped about her bare ankles, the ruddy hair all loose about her back.

"Then whatever made you pretend you had ?" she said.
He smiled back, half against his will, with the eloquent shrug that generally served him where speech was awkward.
"And the woman you fought about ?" she continued relentlessly.
"Mademoiselle Christine," he pleaded, "you ask of me the impossible.

You do not know what you ask." "Don't be silly," said Chris imperiously.