re by the
glancing lights, the chiaroscuro of the intersecting streets, the
constantly changing vistas. For an unimpressionable man, he was rather
wrought upon. Nevertheless, he entered the charming apartment whither he
was bound with the detached and composed manner which society regards as
becoming. A maid with a foreign accent greeted him. Yes, Mademoiselle
Reynier was at home; Mr. Van Camp would find her in the drawing-room.

The stiff and unrelaxed manner with which Mr. Van Camp bowed to Miss
Reynier a moment later was not at all indicative of the fairly
respectable fever within his Scotch breast. Miss Reynier herself was
pretty enough to cause quickened pulses. She was of noble height,
evidently a woman of the world. She gave Mr. Van Camp her hand in a
greeting mingled of European daintiness and American frankness. Her
vitality and abounding interest in life were manifest.

"Ah, but you are very late. This is how you become smart all at once in
your New York atmosphere! But pray be seated; and here are cigarettes,
if you will. No? Very well; but tell me; has that amorphous
gill-slit--oh, no, the _branchial lamella_--has it behaved itself and
proved to be the avenue which shall lead you to fame?"

Mr. Van Camp stood silent through this flippant badinage, and calmly
waited until Miss Reynier had settled herself. Then he thoughtfully
turned the chair offered him so as to command a slightly better view of
the corner where she sat, leaning against the old-rose cushions.
Finally, taking his own time, he touched off her greeting with his
precise drawl.

"I'm not smart, as you call it, even in New York, though I try to be."
His eyes twinkled and his teeth gleamed in his wide smile. "If I were
smart, I'd pass by your error in scientific nomenclature, but really I
ought not to do it. If one can not be exact--"

"That's just what I say. If one can not be exact, why talk at all?"
Miss Reynier caught it up with high glee. She had a foreign accent, and
an occasional twist of words which proved her to be neither American nor
Englishwoman. "That's my principle," she insisted. "Leave other people
in undisturbed possession of their hobbies, especially in conversation,
and don't say anything if you can't say what you mean. But then, _you_
won't talk about your hobby; and if I have no one to inform me, how can I
be exact? But I'm the meekest person alive; I'm so ready to learn."

Mr. Van Camp surveyed first