I am not a boy." The Princess looked at him.

Whatever her thoughts may have been, her face remained inscrutable.
"No!" the Count continued, drawing his chair a little nearer to the Princess' couch, and leaning towards her, "I do not believe that it was the fear of marriage which drove little Jeanne to disappear." "Then what do you believe, my dear Count ?" the Princess asked.
His eyes seemed to narrow.
"Perhaps," he said significantly, "you may have thought that with her great fortune, and seeing me a little foolish for her, that you had not driven quite a good enough bargain, eh ?" "You insulting beast!" the Princess remarked.
The Count grinned.

He was in no way annoyed.
"Ah!" he said.

"I am a man whom it is not easy to deceive.

I have seen very much of the world, and I know the ways of women.