him
in some amusement, "are you sorry?"

"No--" said Clay, but so slowly and with such consideration that Miss
Langham laughed and held her head a little higher. "Not sorry to meet
you, but to meet you in such surroundings."

"What fault do you find with my surroundings?"

"Well, these people," answered Clay, "they are so foolish, so futile.
You shouldn't be here. There must be something else better than this.
You can't make me believe that you choose it. In Europe you could have
a salon, or you could influence statesmen. There surely must be
something here for you to turn to as well. Something better than
golf-sticks and salted almonds."

"What do you know of me?" said Miss Langham, steadily. "Only what you
have read of me in impertinent paragraphs. How do you know I am fitted
for anything else but just this? You never spoke with me before
to-night."

"That has nothing to do with it," said Clay, quickly. "Time is made
for ordinary people. When people who amount to anything meet they
don't have to waste months in finding each other out. It is only the
doubtful ones who have to be tested again and again. When I was a kid
in the diamond mines in Kimberley, I have seen the experts pick out a
perfect diamond from the heap at the first glance, and without a
moment's hesitation. It was the cheap stones they spent most of the
afternoon over. Suppose I HAVE only seen you to-night for the first
time; suppose I shall not see you again, which is quite likely, for I
sail tomorrow for South America--what of that? I am just as sure of
what you are as though I had known you for years."

Miss Langham looked at him for a moment in silence. Her beauty was so
great that she could take her time to speak. She was not afraid of
losing any one's attention.

"And have you come out of the West, knowing me so well, just to tell me
that I am wasting myself?" she said. "Is that all?"

"That is all," answered Clay. "You know the things I would like to
tell you," he added, looking at her closely.

"I think I like to be told the other things best," she said, "they are
the easier to believe."

"You have to believe whatever I tell you," said Clay, smiling. The girl
pressed her hands together in her lap, and looked at him curiously.
The people about them were moving and making their farewells, and they
brought her back to the present with a start.

"I'm sorry you're going away," she said. "It has been so odd. You come
su