the hat."

"You dared to search it?"--drawing herself up to a supreme height, which
was something less than five-feet-two.

I became angry, and somehow found myself.

"I never pry into other people's affairs. You are the last person I
expected to see this night."

"Will you answer a single question? I promise not to intrude further
upon your time, which, doubtless, is very valuable. Have you either the
hat or the letter?"

"Neither. I knew nothing about any letter till Mr. Chittenden came. But
he came too late."

"Too late?"--in an agonized whisper.

"Yes, too late. I had, unfortunately, given his hat to another gentleman
who made a trifling mistake in thinking it to be his own." Suddenly my
manners returned to me. "Will you come in?"

"Come in? No! You have given the hat to another man? A trifling mistake!
He calls it a trifling mistake!"--addressing the heavens, obscured
though they were by the thickness of several ceilings. "Oh, what _shall_
I do?" She began to wring her hands, and when a woman does that what
earthly hope is there for the man who looks on?

"Don't do that!" I implored. "I'll find the hat." At a word from her,
for all she had trampled on me, I would gladly have gone to Honolulu in
search of a hat-pin. "The gentleman left me his card. With your
permission I will go at once in search of him."

"I have a cab outside. Give me the address."

"I refuse to permit you to go alone."

"You have absolutely nothing to say in regard to where I shall or shall
not go."

"In this one instance. I shall withhold the address."

How her eyes blazed!

"Oh, it is easily to be seen that you do not trust me." I was utterly
discouraged.

"I did not imply that," with the least bit of softening. "Certainly I
would trust you. But ..."

"Well?"--as laughingly as I could.

"I must be the one to take out that letter,"--decidedly.

"I offer to bring you the hat untouched," I replied.

"I insist on going."

"Very well; we shall go together; under no other circumstances. This is
a common courtesy that I would show to a perfect stranger."

I put on my hat, took up the Frenchman's card and tile, and bowed her
gravely into the main hallway. We did not speak on the way down to the
street. We entered the cab in silence, and went rumbling off southwest.
When the monotony became positively unbearable I spoke.

"I regret to force myself upon you."

No reply.

"It must be a very important letter."

"To no on