r?" she asked. "Did
you mean to see me there?"

"Why, yes," said he; "I would have given my head to see you anywhere,
only--"

"Only what?"

"Duncan might have came in and spoiled it."

"Spoiled what?"

Bob fidgeted.

"Look here, Cynthia," he said, "you're not stupid--far from it. Of
course you know a fellow would rather talk to you alone."

"I should have been very glad to have seen Mr. Duncan, too."

"You would, would you!" he exclaimed. "I shouldn't have thought that."

"Isn't he your friend?" asked Cynthia.

"Oh, yes," said Bob, "and one of the best in the world. Only--I
shouldn't have thought you'd care to talk to him." And he looked
around for fear the vigilant Mr. Duncan was already in the park and had
discovered them. Cynthia smiled, and immediately became grave again.

"So it was only on Mr. Duncan's account that you didn't ask me to come
down to the parlor?" she said.

Bob was in a quandary. He was a truthful person, and he had learned
something of the world through his three years at Cambridge. He had seen
many young women, and many kinds of them. But the girl beside him was
such a mixture of innocence and astuteness that he was wholly at a loss
how to deal with her--how to parry her searching questions.

"Naturally--I wanted to have you all to myself," he said; "you ought to
know that."

Cynthia did not commit herself on this point. She wished to go
mercilessly to the root of the matter, but the notion of what this would
imply prevented her. Bob took advantage of her silence.

"Everybody who sees you falls a victim, Cynthia," he went on; "Mrs.
Duncan and Janet lost their hearts. You ought to have heard them
praising you at breakfast." He paused abruptly, thinking of the rest of
that conversation, and laughed. Bob seemed fated to commit himself that
day. "I heard the way you handled Heth Sutton," he said, plunging
in. "I'll bet he felt as if he'd been dropped out of the third-story
window," and Bob laughed again. "I'd have given a thousand dollars to
have been there. Somers and I went out to supper with a classmate who
lives in Washington, in that house over there," and he pointed casually
to one of the imposing mansions fronting on the park. "Mrs. Duncan said
she'd never heard anybody lay it on the way you did. I don't believe you
half know what happened, Cynthia. You made a ten-strike."

"A ten-strike?" she repeated.

"Well," he said, "you not only laid out Heth, but my father and Mr.