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"Also," she continued, still more confidently, "I am certain that if you were in love, no obstacles would prove too great for you to surmount. Would they?"

"Really," he said, "I don't know. I'm not very enterprising."

"That is the answer of a delightfully modest man. Your own hero would return me such an answer, Mr. Smith. But I – and your heroine also – understand you – I mean your hero."

"Do you?" he asked gravely.

"Certainly. I, as well as your heroine, understand that no obstacles could check you if you loved her – neither political considerations, diplomatic exigencies, family prejudices, nor her own rank, no matter what it might be. Is not that true?"

Eager, enthusiastic, impersonally but warmly interested, she leaned a little toward him, intent on his reply.

He looked into the lovely, flushed face in silence for a while. Then:

"Yes," he said, "it is true. If I loved, nothing could check me except – " he shrugged.

"Death?" She nodded, fascinated.

He nodded. He had meant to say the police.

She said exultantly: "I knew it, Mr. Smith! I was certain that you are the living embodiment of your own heroes! The moment I set eyes on you playing in the sand with your lead soldiers, I was sure of it!"

Thrilled, she considered him, her soft eyes brilliant with undisguised admiration.

"I wish I could actually see it!" she said under her breath.

"See what?"

"See you, in real life, as one of your own heroes – doing some of the things they do so cleverly, so winningly – careless of convention, reckless of consequences, oblivious to all considerations except only the affair in hand. That," she said excitedly, "would be glorious, and well worth a trip to the States!"

"How far," he asked, "have you read in that book of mine?"

"In this book?" She opened it, impulsively, ran over the pages, hesitated, stopped.

"He was – was kissing the Balkan Princess," she said. "I left them —in statu quo."

"I see… Did he do that well?"

"I – suppose so."

"Have you no opinion?"

"I think he did it – very – thoroughly, Mr. Smith."

"It ought to be done thoroughly if done at all," he said reflectively.

"Otherwise," she nodded, "it would be offensive."

"To the reader?"

"To her, too. Wouldn't it?"

"You know better than I."

"No, I don't know. A nice girl can not imagine herself being kissed – except under very extraordinary circumstances, and by a very extraordinary man… Such a man as you have drawn in this book."

"Had you been that Balkan Princess, what would you have done?" he asked, rather pale.

"I?" she said, startled.

"Yes, you."

She sat considering, blue eyes lost in candid reverie. Then the faintest smile curved her lips; she looked up at Smith with winning simplicity.

"In your story, Mr. Smith, does the Balkan Princess return his kiss?"

"Not in that chapter."

"I think I would have returned it – in that – chapter." Then, for the first time, she blushed.

The naïve avowal set the heart and intellect of Mr. Smith afire. But he only dropped his well-shaped head and didn't look at her. Which was rather nice of him.

"Romance," he said after a moment or two, "is all well enough. But real life is stranger than fiction."

"Not in the British Isles," she said with decision. "It is tea and curates and kennels and stables – as our writers depict it."

"No, you are mistaken! Everywhere it is stranger than fiction," he insisted – "more surprising, more charming, more wonderful. Even here in America – here in Florida – here on this tiny point of sand jutting into the Atlantic, life is more beautiful, more miraculous than any fiction ever written."

"Why do you say that?" she asked.

"I am afraid I can't tell you why I say it."

"Why can't you tell me?"

"Only in books could what I might have to tell you be logically told – and listened to – "

"Only in books? But books in America reflect actual life," she said. "Therefore, you can tell me what you have to tell. Can't you?"

"Can I?" he asked.

"Yes…" Far in the inmost recesses of her calm and maiden heart something stirred, and her breath ceased for a second… Innocent, not comprehending why her breath missed, she looked at him with the question still in her blue eyes.

"Shall I tell you why real life is stranger than fiction?" he asked unsteadily.

"Tell me – yes – if – "

"It is stranger," he said, "because it is often more headlong and romantic. Shall we take ourselves, for example?"

"You and me?"