ve courage to tell the truth. When
you said that you couldn't come, it was what you really thought Now
that you have learnt your mistake, you confess it."

"I couldn't have done it if I hadn't made up my mind that it was all
the same, whether I came or refused."

"All the same to you. Yes; I'm quite willing that you should think it
so. It puts me at my ease. I have nothing to reproach myself with. Ah,
but how good it is to sit here and talk!"

"Don't you know anyone else who would come with you? Haven't you made
any friends?"

"Not one. You and Miss Ringrose are the only persons I know in London."

"I can't understand why you live in that way."

"How should I make friends--among men? Why, it's harder than making
money--which I have never done yet, and never shall, I'm afraid."

Eve averted her eyes, and again seemed to meditate.

"I'll tell you," pursued the young man "how the money came to me that I
am living on now. It'll fill up the few moments while we are waiting."

He made of it an entertaining narrative, which he concluded just as the
soup was laid before them. Eve listened with frank curiosity, with an
amused smile. Then came a lull in the conversation. Hilliard began his
dinner with appetite and gusto; the girl, after a few sips, neglected
her soup and glanced about the neighboring tables.

"In my position," said Hilliard at length, "what would you have done?"

"It's a difficult thing to put myself in your position."

"Is it, really? Why, then, I will tell you something more of myself.
You say that Mrs. Brewer gave me an excellent character?"

"I certainly shouldn't have known you from her description."

Hilliard laughed.

"I seem to you so disreputable?"

"Not exactly that," replied Eve thoughtfully. "But you seem altogether
a different person from what you seemed to her."

"Yes, I can understand that. And it gives me an opportunity for saying
that you, Miss Madeley, are as different as possible from the idea I
formed of you when I heard Mrs. Brewer's description."

"She described me? I should so like to hear what she said."

The changing of plates imposed a brief silence. Hilliard drank a glass
of wine and saw that Eve just touched hers with her lips.

"You shall hear that--but not now. I want to enable you to judge me,
and if I let you know the facts while dinner goes on it won't be so
tiresome as if I began solemnly to tell you my life, as people do in
novels."

He erred, if anythin