sed her eyes and looked at him steadily. "You have fallen
in love with Helena," she said.

"What nonsense! My dear child, what are you talking about? Miss Belmont
asked me to take her to the conservatory; and as I do not dance, and as
you do, and as she announced her intention of not dancing again, and is
a very entertaining young woman, I decided to remain there. If our
engagement had been made known, of course I should have done nothing of
the sort. But as it was--"

"You turned white when you first saw her. Alan Rush looked just like
that. Now he is mad about her."

"I am not Alan Rush, nor any other boy of twenty-five. The man you have
elected to marry, and who is not half good enough for you, as I have
told you many times, is a seasoned person past middle age, my dearest. I
could not go off my head over a pretty face if I tried. My day for that
is long past."

He spoke vehemently.

"You never looked at me like that."

"Doubtless my pallor was due to some such unromantic cause as an
extremely bad dinner."

"I have seen that look several times. Alan Rush is not the only one. And
Helena is no doll. She has every fascination."

"Possibly. Shall we go for our walk? I am most anxious to see those old
houses and graves."

He did not offer to kiss her. She was too proud to take up woman's usual
refrain. She put on her hat, and they left the hotel, and walked toward
the town.

"I believe the cemetery comes first," she said. "I have made inquiries.
We can see the town from there, and go on afterward--if you like."

"Of course I like. How good of you to wait for me! I know you have been
longing for the town which I am convinced is a part of your very
personality."

"Yes, I have been longing. I don't care much about it this morning."

"Which of your heroines is buried in the cemetery?"

"Benicia Ortega, La Tulita, and some of aunt's old friends."

"You must certainly write those old stories. I often think of them."

"Nothing that you say this morning sounds like the truth."

"My dear girl! I am dull and stupid after a sleepless night. And the
night after you left I sat up until two in the morning writing important
letters."

"I think it was disloyal of Helena."

"I must rush to her defence. She did not know until the end of the
evening who I was. She took me for one of the several Easterners who
arrived to-day. Two of them brought letters to her father from Mr.
Forbes. One was the son of an old friend.