et not have improved the opportunity of
taking a look at it.

Grace instantly scented a mystery, and was not less promptly resolved
to fathom it. And what must be the nature of a mystery attaching to a
handsome man, unmarried, and evidently no stranger to the gentler sex?
Of course there must be a woman in it! Her eyes glowed with azure fire.

"You have some acquaintances in California, I suppose?" she said, with
an air of laborious indifference.

"Well,--yes; I believe I have," Freeman admitted.

"Have they lived there long?"

"No; not over a few months. I accidentally heard from a person in
Panama. I dropped a line to say I might turn up."

"She----you haven't had time to get an answer, then?"

Freeman inhaled a deep breath through his cigarette, tilted his head
back, and allowed the smoke to escape slowly through his nostrils. In
this manner, familiar to his deep-designing sex, he concealed a smile.
Grace was, in some respects, as transparent as she was subtle. So long
as the matter in hand did not touch her emotions, she had no difficulty
in maintaining a deceptive surface; but emotion she could not disguise,
though she was probably not aware of the fact; for emotion has a
tendency to shut one's own eyes and open what they can no longer see in
one's self to the gaze of outsiders.

"No," he said, when he had recovered his composure. "But that won't make
any difference. We are on rather intimate terms, you see."

"Oh! Is it long since you have met?"

"Pretty long; at least it seems so to me."

Grace turned, and looked full at her companion. He did not meet her
glance, but kept his profile steadily opposed, and went on smoking with
a dreamy air, as if lost in memories and anticipations, sad, yet sweet.

"Really, Mr. Freeman, I hardly thought--you have always seemed to care
so little about anything--I didn't suspect you of so much sentiment."

"I am like other men," he returned, with a sigh. "My affections are
not given indiscriminately; but when they are given,--you
understand,--I----"

"Oh, I understand: pray don't think it necessary to explain. I'm
sure I'm very far from wishing to listen to confidences about
another,--to----"

"Yes, but I like to talk about it," interposed Freeman, earnestly.
"I haven't had a chance to open my heart, you know, for at least six
months. And though you and I haven't known each other long, I believe
you to be capable of appreciating what a man feels when he is on his w