emarkably full, clear, and sweet.

Waymark answered with a negative, looking closely at her.

"Then why did you give her all that money?"

"How do you know what I gave her?"

"I was standing just behind here, and could see."

"Well?"

"Nothing; only I should think you are one out of a thousand. You saved
me a sovereign, too; I've watched her begging of nearly a dozen people,
and I couldn't have stood it much longer."

"You would have given her a sovereign?"

"I meant to, if she'd failed with you."

"Is she a friend of yours?"

"Never saw her before to-night."

"Then you must be one out of a thousand."

The girl laughed merrily.

"In that case," she said, "we ought to know each other, shouldn't we?"

"If we began by thinking so well of each other," returned Waymark,
smiling, "we should not improbably suffer a grievous disappointment
before long."

"Well, _you_ might. You have to take my generosity on trust, but I have
proof of yours."

"You're an original sort of girl," said Waymark, throwing away the end
of his cigar. "Do you talk to everybody in this way?"

"Pooh, of course not. I shouldn't be worth much if I couldn't suit my
conversation to the man I want to make a fool of. Would you rather have
me talk in the usual way? Shall I say--"

"I had rather not."

"Well, I knew that."

"And how?"

"Well, _you_ don't wear a veil, if I do."

"You can read faces?"

"A little, I flatter myself. Can you?"

"Give me a chance of trying."

She raised her veil, and he inspected her for some moments, then looked
away.

"Excellently well, if God did all," he observed, with a smile.

"That's out of a play," she replied quickly. "I heard it a little time
ago, but I forget the answer. I'd have given anything to be able to cap
you! Then you'd have put me down for a clever woman, and I should have
lived on the reputation henceforth and for ever. But it's all my own,
indeed; I'm not afraid of crying."

"_Do_ you ever cry? I can't easily imagine it."

"Oh yes, sometimes," she answered, sighing, and at the same time
lowering her veil again. "But you haven't read my face for me."

"It's a face I'm sorry to have seen."

"Why?" she asked, holding her hands clasped before her, the palms
turned outwards.

"I shall think of it often after tonight, and imagine it with all its
freshness gone, and marks of suffering and degradation upon it."

"Suffering, perhaps; degradation, no. Why should I be degraded?"