nts, harmless erudition, and insolvent amiability, and
I am otherwise perfectly worthless. Can you give me a position?'"

"And he said: 'What else is the matter?' And I said, 'The stock
market.' And that is how it remains, I am to call on him
to-morrow."

She said in consternation: "Forgive me. I did not think you meant
it. I did not know that you were--were----"

"Ruined!" he nodded laughingly. "I am, practically. I have a
little left--badly invested--which I'm trying to get at. Otherwise
matters are gay enough."

She said wonderingly: "Had this happened when--I saw you that first
time?"

"It had just happened. I looked the part, didn't I?"

"No. _How_ could you be so--interesting and--and be--what you
were--knowing this all the while?"

"I went to that party absolutely stunned. I saw you in a corner of
the box--I had just been hearing about you--and--I don't know now
what I said to you. Afterward"--he glanced at her--"the world was
spinning, Mrs. Paige. You only remained real--" His face altered
subtly. "And when I touched you----"

"I gave you a waltz, I believe," she said, striving to speak
naturally; but her pulses had begun to stir again; the same
inexplicable sense of exhilaration and insecurity was creeping over
her.

With a movement partly nervous she turned toward the door, but
there sounded no rustle of her sister's skirts from the stairs, and
her reluctant eyes slowly reverted to him, then fell in silence,
out of which she presently strove to extract them both with some
casual commonplace.

He said in a low voice, almost to himself:

"I want you to think well of me."

She gathered all her composure, steadied her senses to choose a
reply, and made a blunder:

"Do you really care what I think?" she asked lightly, and bit her
lip too late.

"Do you believe I care about anything else in the world--now?"

She went on bravely, blindly:

"And do _you_ expect me to believe in--in such an exaggerated and
romantic expression to a staid and matter-of-fact widow whom you
never saw more than once in your life?"

"You _do_ believe it."

Confused, scarcely knowing what she was saying, she still attempted
to make light of his words, holding her own against herself for the
moment, making even some headway. And all the while she was aware
of mounting emotion--a swift inexplicable charm falling over them
both.

He had become silent again, and she was saying she knew not
what--forti