ed at him
skeptically from the spot just behind his left ear where the barber
had clipped him too short, to the edge of his right heel that the
bootblack had neglected to polish. Apparently she did not even see the
suitcase but,

"Oh, are you leaving town?" she asked icily.

Only by the utmost tact on his part did he finally succeed in
establishing tete-a-tete relations with Cornelia herself; and even
then if the house had been a tower ten stories high, Cornelia's
mother, rustling up the stairs, could not have swished her skirts any
more definitely like a hissing snake.

In absolute dumbness Stanton and Cornelia sat listening until the
horrid sound died away. Then, and then only, did Cornelia cross the
room to Stanton's side and proffer him her hand. The hand was very
cold, and the manner of offering it was very cold, but Stanton was
quite man enough to realize that this special temperature was purely a
matter of physical nervousness rather than of mental intention.

Slipping naturally into the most conventional groove either of word or
deed, Cornelia eyed the suitcase inquisitively.

"What are you doing?" she asked thoughtlessly. "Returning my
presents?"

"You never gave me any presents!" said Stanton cheerfully.

"Why, didn't I?" murmured Cornelia slowly. Around her strained mouth a
smile began to flicker faintly. "Is that why you broke it off?" she
asked flippantly.

"Yes, partly," laughed Stanton.

Then Cornelia laughed a little bit, too.

After this Stanton lost no possible time in getting down to facts.

Stooping over from his chair exactly after the manner of peddlers whom
he had seen in other people's houses, he unbuckled the straps of his
suitcase, and turned the cover backward on the floor.

Cornelia followed every movement of his hand with vaguely perplexed
blue eyes.

"Surely," said Stanton, "this is the weirdest combination of
circumstances that ever happened to a man and a girl--or rather, I
should say, to a man and two girls." Quite accustomed as he now was to
the general effect on himself of the whole unique adventure with the
Serial-Letter Co. his heart could not help giving a little extra jump
on this, the verge of the astonishing revelation that he was about to
make to Cornelia. "Here," he stammered, a tiny bit out of breath,
"here is the small, thin, tissue-paper circular that you sent me from
the Serial-Letter Co. with your advice to subscribe, and there--"
pointing earnestly to th