reed.

"Sometimes, for instance," she went on, "one meets a man one knows, and
speaks to him. And he answers with a glibness! And then, almost
directly, what do you suppose one discovers?"

"What?" he asked.

"One discovers that the wretch hasn't a ghost of a notion who one
is--that he's totally and absolutely forgotten one!"

"Oh, I say! Really?" he exclaimed.

"Yes, really. You can't deny that _that's_ an exhilarating little
adventure."

"I should think it might be. One could enjoy the man's embarrassment,"
he reflected.

"Or his lack of embarrassment. Some men are of an assurance, of a _sang
froid_! They'll place themselves beside you, and walk with you, and talk
with you, and even propose that you should pass the livelong afternoon
cracking jokes with them in a garden, and never breathe a hint of their
perplexity. They'll brazen it out."

"That's distinctly heroic, Spartan, of them, don't you think?" he said.
"Intentionally, poor dears, they're very likely suffering agonies of
discomfiture."

"We'll hope they are. Could they decently do less?" said she.

"And fancy the mental struggles that must be going on in their brains,"
he urged. "If I were a man in such a situation I'd throw myself upon the
woman's mercy. I'd say, 'Beautiful, sweet lady! I know I know you. Your
name, your entirely charming and appropriate name, is trembling on the
tip of my tongue. But, for some unaccountable reason, my brute of a
memory chooses to play the fool. If you've a spark of Christian kindness
in your soul, you'll come to my rescue with a little clue."

"If the woman had a Christian sense of the ridiculous in her soul, I
fear you'd throw yourself on her mercy in vain," she warned.

"What _is_ the good of tantalizing people?"

"Besides," she continued, "the woman might reasonably feel slightly
humiliated to find herself forgotten in that bare-faced manner."

"The humiliation would be surely all the man's. Have you heard from the
Wohenhoffens lately?"

"The--what? The--who?" She raised her eyebrows.

"The Wohenhoffens," he repeated.

"What are the Wohenhoffens? Are they persons? Are they things?"

"Oh, nothing. My inquiry was merely dictated by a thirst for knowledge.
It occurred to me that you might have won a black domino at the masked
ball they gave, the Wohenhoffens. Are you sure you didn't?"

"I've a great mind to punish your forgetfulness by pretending that I
did," she teased.

"She was rather tall, like