o-night. Perhaps it was because she had been so
long silent--for many years silent. Perhaps it was because Monte was
so very impersonal that it was a good deal like talking out loud to
herself, with the advantage of being able to do this without wondering
if she were losing her wits. Then, too, after Teddy, Monte's
straight-seeing blue eyes freshened her thoughts like a clean north
wind. She always spoke of Monte as the most American man she knew; and
by that she meant something direct and honest--something four-square.

"I met Teddy on the boat," she resumed. "I was traveling alone
because--well, just because I wanted to be alone. You know, Aunt Kitty
was very good to me, but I'd been with her every minute for more than
ten years, and so I wanted to be by myself a little while. Right after
she died, I went down to the farm--her farm in Connecticut--and thought
I could be alone there. But--she left me a great deal of money, Monte."

Somehow, she could speak of such a thing to him. She was quite
matter-of-fact about it.

"It was a great deal too much," she went on. "I did n't mind myself,
because I could forget about it; but other people--they made me feel
like a rabbit running before the hounds. Some one put the will in the
papers, and people I'd never heard of began to write to me--dozens of
them. Then men with all sorts of schemes--charities and gold mines and
copper mines and oil wells and I don't know what all, came down there
to see me: down there to the little farm, where I wanted to be alone.
Of course, I could be out to them; but even then I was conscious that
they were around. Some of them even waited until I ventured from the
house, and waylaid me on the road.

"Then there were others--people I knew and could n't refuse to see
without being rude. I felt," she said, looking up at Monte, "as if the
world of people had suddenly all turned into men, and that they were
hunting me. I could n't get away from them without locking myself up,
and that was just the thing I did n't want to do. In a way, I 'd been
locked up all my life. So I just packed my things and took the steamer
without telling any one but my lawyer where I was going."

"It's too bad they wouldn't let you alone," said Monte.

"It was like an evil dream," she said. "I did n't know men were like
that."

Monte frowned.

Of course, that is just what would happen to a young woman as
good-looking as she, suddenly left alone with a