to take a friendly interest in her.

"I ought to explain," she went on, "that I am going to the Engadine as
a journalist. I have had the good fortune to be chosen for a very
pleasant task. Hence this present grandeur, which, I assure you, is
not a usual condition of entomological secretaries."

Bower pretended to ward off some unexpected attack. "I have done
nothing to deserve a hard word like that, Miss Wynton," he cried. "I
shall not recover till we reach Calais. May I sit beside you while you
tell me what it means?"

She made room for him. "Strictly speaking, it is nonsense," she said.

"Excellent. That is the better line for women who are young and
pretty. We jaded men of the world hate to be serious when we leave
business behind. Now, you would scarce credit what a lively youngster
I am when I come abroad for a holiday. I always kiss my fingers to
France at the first sight of her fair face. She bubbles like her own
champagne, whereas London invariably reminds me of beer."

"Do I take it that you prefer gas to froth?"

"You offer me difficult alternatives, yet I accept them. Though gas
is as dreadful a description of champagne as entomological is of a
certain type of secretary, I would venture to point out that it
expands, effervesces, soars ever to greater heights; but beer, froth
and all, tends to become flat, stale, and unprofitable."

"I assure you my knowledge of both is limited. I had never even tasted
champagne until the other day."

"When you lunched with Millicent at the Embankment Hotel?"

"Well--yes. She was at school with me, and we met last week by
accident. She is making quite a success at the Wellington Theater, is
she not?"

"So I hear. I am a director of that concern; but I seldom go there."

"How odd that sounds to one who saves up her pennies to attend a
favorite play!"

"Then you must have my address, and when I am in town you need never
want a stall at any theater in London. Now, that is no idle promise. I
mean it. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to think you
were enjoying something through my instrumentality."

"How exceedingly kind of you! I shall take you at your word. What girl
wouldn't?"

"I know quite a number who regard me as an ogre. I am not a lady's man
in the general sense of the term, Miss Wynton. I might tell you more
about myself if it were not for signs that the next five minutes will
bring us to Calais. You are far too independent, I suppose, that I