at her
with a pair of singularly bright brown eyes--eyes which had the direct,
unwavering, gentle gaze of a person who has the gift of reading the
meaning of faces and expressions to which others are blind. Indeed, so
clearly had he guessed the trend of the thoughts which underlay the
seriousness of Nancy's sensitive face, that he felt almost like an
eavesdropper. Suddenly she jerked her head and saw him. He stood up.

"I--I beg your pardon," he apologized, still with the sensation of
having heard something that had not been meant for his ears. "You
didn't know I was here, and I was rather at a loss as to how I should
break it to you."

Nancy had flushed to the edge of her hair.

"That--that's all right," she stammered. "I--I mean, I should
apologize to you. You were reading." She began to move away toward
the door again, but he stopped her hastily.

"You mustn't go, and you mustn't for a moment think you've disturbed
me. I haven't any business to be in here anyway, because I think I was
invited to entertain and be entertained like any respectable guest. I
don't know what they do to unmannerly, unsociable creatures who sneak
off for a book and a smoke from the scenes of revelry, but I'm guilty,
and deserve to die the death, or whatever it is."

Nancy laughed. When he talked he had a droll way of wrinkling up his
forehead, and then suddenly breaking into a beaming, mischievous grin,
like a schoolboy.

"I'm guilty, too."

"Yes,--and really ever so much more so than I am; because you're
deliberately robbing at least ninety-nine per cent. of the guests of a
part of their evening's pleasure, whereas, my absence is of so little
importance one way or the other that, although I've been in here the
better part of an hour already, there hasn't been even a whimper of
protest. It's been decidedly injurious to my _amour-propre_. I had
hoped, when you came in, that you had been sent by the unanimous vote
of all present to request my immediate return to the regions of
festivity. I was prepared to be coy--but not adamantine. Imagine my
chagrin and dismay when it gradually dawned on me not only that you
hadn't come for any such flattering purpose, but even that you hadn't
the smallest notion I was here. As far as you were concerned I was of
less significance than a cockroach."

"But that's not bad--a cockroach would be of awful significance to me,"
said Nancy, with a laugh.

"We have caught each other red-han