She hesitated and turned back,
before unlocking her door. "It's charming!"

He was on the point, she knew, of making the plunge and asking if they
might not see the Riggi together, when something in her glance, some
precautionary chilliness of look, checked him. For she had seen that
even now things might advance too hurriedly. It would be wiser, and in
the long run it would pay, she warned herself, to draw in--for as she
still lingered and chatted with him she more and more felt that she was
face to face with a resourceful and strong-willed opponent. She
noticed, through all the outward Celtic gentleness, the grim and
passionate mouth, the keenness of the shifty yet penetrating hazel-gray
eyes, the touch of almost bull-dog tenaciousness about the
loose-jointed, high-shouldered figure, and, above all, the audacity of
the careless Irish-American smile. That smile, she felt, trailed like
a flippant and fluttering tail to the kite of his racial solemnity and
stubbornness of purpose, enabling it to rise higher even while seeming
to weigh it down.

"And you always travel alone?" he finally asked, shaking off the last
of his reserve.

"Oh, I'm a bit of a globe-trotter--that's what you'd call me on your
side of the ocean, isn't it? You see, I go about Southern Europe
picking up things for a London art firm!"

"And where do you go next?"

"Oh, perhaps to Milan, perhaps to Naples; it may even be to Rome, or it
might turn out to be Syracuse or Taormina. With me, everything
depends, first on the weather, and, next, on what instructions are sent
on."

She inwardly marveled at the glibness and spontaneity with which the
words fell from her tongue. She even took a sort of secret joy in the
dramatic values which that scene of play-acting presented to her.

"And do you ever go to New York?"

"Yes, such a thing might happen, any time."

It was as well, she told herself, to leave the way well paved.

"_That's_ the city for you!" he declared, with a commending shake of
the head.

Of the truth of that fact Frances Durkin was only too well aware; but
this was a conviction to which she did not give utterance.

As they stood chatting together in the deserted hallway, a man, turning
the corner, brushed by them. He merely gave them one casual glance of
inquiry, and then looked away, apparently at the room-numbers on the
lintels.

The young woman chanced to be tapping half-carelessly, half-nervously,
with her key on