e East, didn't you?"

"Yes'm."

"Where?" The man hesitated, at which she insisted, "Where?"

Dave reluctantly turned upon her a pair of eyes in the depths of which
there lurked the faintest twinkle. "Cornell," said he.

Alaire gasped. After a while she remarked, stiffly, "You have a
peculiar sense of humor."

"Now don't be offended," he begged of her. "I'm a good deal like a
chameleon; I unconsciously change my color to suit my surroundings.
When we first met I saw that you took me for one thing, and since then
I've tried not to show you your mistake."

"Why did you let me send you those silly books? Now that you have begun
to tell the truth, keep it up. How many of them had you read?"

"We-ll, I hadn't read any of them--lately."

"How disagreeable of you to put it that way!" The car leaped forward as
if spurred by Alaire's mortification. "I wondered how you knew about
the French Revolution. 'That Bastilly was some calaboose, wasn't it'?"
She quoted his own words scornfully. "I dare say you've had a fine
laugh at my expense?"

"No!" gravely denied the man.

They had come to an arroyo containing a considerable stream of muddy
water, and Law was forced to get out to plug the carburetor and stop
the oil-intakes to the crankcase. This done, Alaire ran the machine
through on the self-starter. When Jose's "Carambas!" and Dolores's
shrieks had subsided, and they were again under way, Mrs. Austin, it
seemed, had regained her good humor.

"You will receive no more of my favorite authors," she told Dave,
spitefully. "I'll keep them to read myself."

"You like knights and--chivalry and such things, don't you?"

"Chivalry, yes. In the days when I believed in it I used to cry over
those romances."

"Don't you still believe in chivalry?"

Alaire turned her eyes upon the questioner, and there were no girlish
illusions in them. "Do you?" she queried, with a faint curl of her lip.

"Why--yes."

She shook her head. "Men have changed. Nowadays they are all selfish
and sordid. But--I shouldn't generalize, for I'm a notorious man-hater,
you know."

"It seems to me that women are just as selfish as men--perhaps more
so--in all but little things."

"Our definitions of 'little things' may differ. What do you call a big
thing?"

"Love! That's the biggest thing in the world," Law responded, promptly.

"It seems to be so considered. So you think women are selfish in love?"
He nodded, whereupon she eyed him speculativel