-case, he had only one small piece of luggage in the van, to be
taken to his automobile; and there were other passengers who looked much
jollier and more amenable than he: yet it was to him that a girl spoke
as he was about to walk past her, after his chosen porter.

"Oh! Will you please be so very kind as to wait a minute!" she
exclaimed.

Her "Oh!" was like a barrier suddenly thrown down in front of him. Of
course he stopped; and if he were not greatly astonished it was only
because so many odd things had happened to him in life, in railway
stations and drawing rooms and in all sorts of other places, that it
took a great deal to make him feel surprise, and still more to make him
show it.

He was roused to alertness, however, when he saw what manner of girl
invited him to "wait a minute." He had never seen one like her before.
And yet, of whose face did hers piquantly remind him? He had a dim
impression that it was quite a celebrated face, and no wonder, if it
were like this one. The only odd thing was that he could not remember
whose the first face had been, for such features could never let
themselves be wiped off memory's slate.

The girl was almost a child, apparently, for her hair hung in two long
bright red braids over her extraordinary cloak; and her big eyes were
child's eyes. What her figure was like, except that she was a tall,
long-legged, upstanding young creature, no one could judge, not even an
anatomist, because of that weird wrap. As a cloak it was a shocking
production--a hideous, unbelievable contribution to cloakhood from the
hands of a mantle-making vandal--but it caught the man's interest,
because before his eyes danced the hunting tartan of the MacDonalds of
Dhrum. Once that particular combination of green, blue, red, brown,
purple, and white had flashed to his heart a signal of warm human love,
daring and high romance; but he believed that long ago his heart had
shut against such deceiving signals. Across the way in, he had printed
in big letters "NO THOROUGHFARE," and was unconsciously well pleased
with himself because he had done this, thinking it a proof of mature
wisdom, keen insight into his brother man--especially perhaps his sister
woman--and a general tendency toward scientific, bomb-proof modernity,
the triumph of intellect over emotion. And in truth his experiences had
been of a kind to change the enthusiastic boy he once had been into the
cynical, hard-headed man he was now. Nevert