ou were very foolish last night? You ought to have
left me alone. Why didn't you? You would have saved yourself a great
deal of trouble."

He nodded, as though that point of view did, in some degree, commend
itself to him.

"Yes," he admitted, "I suppose I should. I do not, even now, understand
why I interfered. I can only remember that it didn't seem possible not
to at the time. I suppose one must have impulses," he added, with a
little frown.

"The reflection," she remarked, helping herself to another roll, "seems
to annoy you."

"It does," he confessed. "I do not like to feel impelled to do anything
the reason for which is not apparent. I like to do just the things which
seem likely to work out best for myself."

"How you must hate me!" she murmured.

"No, I do not hate you," he replied, "but, on the other hand, you have
certainly been a trouble to me. First of all, I told a falsehood at the
boarding-house, and I prefer always to tell the truth when I can. Then
I followed you out of the house, which I disliked doing very much, and
I seem to have spent a considerable portion of the time since, in your
company, under somewhat extraordinary circumstances. I do not understand
why I have done this."

"I suppose it is because you are a very good-hearted person," she
remarked.

"But I am not," he assured her, calmly. "I am nothing of the sort. I
have very little sympathy with good-hearted people. I think the world
goes very much better when every one looks after himself, and the people
who are not competent to do so go to the wall."

"It sounds a trifle selfish," she murmured.

"Perhaps it is. I have an idea that if I could phrase it differently it
would become philosophy."

"Perhaps," she suggested, smiling across the table at him, "you have
really done all this because you like me."

"I am quite sure that it is not that," he declared. "I feel an interest
in you for which I cannot account, but it does not seem to me to be
a personal one. Last night," he continued, "when I was sitting there
waiting, I tried to puzzle it all out. I came to the conclusion that it
was because you represent something which I do not understand. I am very
curious and it always interests me to learn. I believe that must be the
secret of my interest in you."

"You are very complimentary," she told him, mockingly. "I wonder what
there is in the world which I could teach so superior a person as Mr.
Tavernake?"

He took her questio