what
he had been feeling as he entered the house. His silence and
confusion, he knew, must seem to Constance Sherrill unwillingness to
answer her; for she did not suspect that he was unable to answer her.
She plainly took it in that way; but she did not seem offended; it was
sympathy, rather, that she showed. She seemed to appreciate, without
understanding except through her feelings, that--for some
reason--answer was difficult and dismaying for him.

"You would rather explain to father than to me," she decided.

He hesitated. What he wanted now was time to think, to learn who she
was and who her father was, and to adjust himself to this strange
reversal of his expectations.

"Yes; I would rather do that," he said.

"Will you come around to our house, then, please?"

She caught up her fur collar and muff from a chair and spoke a word to
the servant. As she went out on to the porch, he followed her and
stooped to pick up his suitcase.

"Simons will bring that," she said, "unless you'd rather have it with
you. It is only a short walk."

He was recovering from the first shock of her question now, and,
reflecting that men who accompanied Constance Sherrill probably did not
carry hand baggage, he put the suitcase down and followed her to the
walk. As she turned north and he caught step beside her, he studied
her with quick interested glances, realizing her difference from all
other girls he ever had walked with, but he did not speak to her nor
she to him. Turning east at the first corner, they came within sight
and hearing again of the turmoil of the lake.

"We go south here," she said at the corner of the Drive. "Our house is
almost back to back with Mr. Corvet's."

Alan, looking up after he had made the turn with her, recognized the
block as one he had seen pictured sometimes in magazines and
illustrated papers as a "row" of the city's most beautiful homes.
Larger, handsomer, and finer than the mansions on Astor Street, each
had its lawn or terrace in front and on both sides, where snow-mantled
shrubs and straw-bound rosebushes suggested the gardens of spring.
They turned in at the entrance of a house in the middle of the block
and went up the low, wide stone steps; the door opened to them without
ring or knock; a servant in the hall within took Alan's hat and coat,
and he followed Constance past some great room upon his right to a
smaller one farther down the hall.

"Will you wait here, please?" she a