e
leaned back nonchalantly and proceeded to test my gameness by a
prolonged and undisguised gaze, which he directed toward me through
half-closed lids. I showed no uneasiness. I kept right on looking
steadily meadow-ward, as if green fields and winding streams were much
more engrossing to me than the presence of a mere stranger. I enjoyed
the game I was playing as innocently, upon my word, as I would any
contest of endurance. And it was in the same spirit that I took the next
dare that was offered me.

I do not know how long it was that Breckenridge Sewall continued to gaze
at me, how long I sat undisturbed beneath the fire of his eyes. At any
rate it was he who broke the tension first. He leaned forward and drew
from his waistcoat pocket a gold cigarette case.

"Do you object?" he asked.

"Certainly not," I replied, with a tiny shrug. And then abruptly, just
as he was to return the case to his pocket, he leaned forward again.

"I beg your pardon--won't _you_?" And he offered _me_ the cigarettes,
his eyes narrowed upon me.

It was not the custom for young girls of my age to smoke cigarettes. It
was not considered good form for a debutante to do anything of that
sort. I had so far refused all cocktails and wines at dinners. However,
I knew how to manage a cigarette. As a lark at boarding-school I had
consumed a quarter of an inch of as many as a half-dozen cigarettes. In
some amateur theatricals the winter before, in which I took the part of
a young man, I had bravely smoked through half of one, and made my
speeches too. What this man had said of Hilton and its provincialism was
in my mind now. I meant no wickedness, no harm. I took one of the
proffered cigarettes with the grand indifference of having done it many
times before. Mr. Sewall watched me closely, and when he produced a
match, lit it, and stretched it out toward me in the hollow of his hand.
I leaned forward and simply played over again my well-learned act of the
winter before. Instead of the clapping of many hands and a curtain-call,
which had pleased me very much last winter, my applause today came in a
less noisy way, but was quite as satisfying.

"Look here," softly exclaimed Breckenridge Sewall. "Say, who are you,
anyway?"

Of course I wasn't stupid enough to tell him, and when I saw that he was
on the verge of announcing his identity, I exclaimed:

"Oh, don't, please. I'd much rather not know."

"Oh, you don't know then?"

"Are you Mr. Jacks