n," he repeated doggedly.

"Oh," she said, revolted, "that is not true! You are a gentleman--I know
who you are perfectly well!"

"Who am I?"

She called him by name, almost angrily.

"Well," he said sullenly, "what of it? If you have investigated my record
you must know I am as poor as these miserable mice."

"I--I know it. But you are a gentleman----"

"I am a mountebank," he said; "I mean a mountebank in its original
interpretation. There's neither sense nor necessity for me to deny it."

"I--I don't understand you," she whispered, shocked.

"Why, I do monkey tricks to entertain people," he replied, forcing a
laugh, "or rather, I hope to do a few--and be paid for them. I fancy
every man finds his own level; I've found mine, apparently."

Her face was inscrutable; she lay back in the great chair, watching him.

"I have a little money left," he said; "enough to last a day or two. Then
I am to be paid for entertaining some people at Seabright; and," he added
with that very attractive smile of his from which all bitterness had
departed, "and that will be the first money I ever earned in all my
life."

She was young enough to be fascinated, child enough to feel the little
lump in her throat rising. She knew he was poor; her sisters had told her
that; but she had supposed it to be only comparative poverty--just as her
cousins, for instance, had scarcely enough to keep more than two horses
in town and only one motor. But want--actual need--she had never dreamed
of in his case--she could scarcely understand it even now--he was so well
groomed, so attractive, fairly radiating good breeding and the easy
financial atmosphere she was accustomed to.

"So you see," he continued gayly, "if you complain to the owners about
green mice, why, I shall have to leave, and, as a matter of fact, I
haven't enough money to go anywhere except--" he laughed.

"Where?" she managed to say.

"The Park. I was joking, of course," he hastened to add, for she had
turned rather white.

"No," she said, "you were not joking." And as he made no reply: "Of
course, I shall not write--now. I had rather my studio were overrun with
multicolored mice--" She stopped with something almost like a sob. He
smiled, thinking she was laughing.

But oh, the blow for her! In her youthful enthusiasm she had always, from
the first time they had encountered one another, been sensitively aware
of this tall, clean-cut, attractive young fellow. And by and by