ven that I might be perhaps the sort of person who ought not to
be introduced into your party in quite that way?"

"That least of all. Persons of that sort do not admit themselves to be
such; and if I have lived for twen--I shall not tell you just how many
years--the sort of life I have been obliged to live almost since I was
born, without learning to judge men in that respect, I must have failed
to use my opportunities."

"Thank you," he returned quietly; then, as he recollected his
instinctive prejudice against Avery: "However, I am not so sure."

She plainly waited for him to go on, but he pretended to be concerned
wholly with guiding her along the platform.

"Mr. Eaton!"

"Yes."

"Do you know that you are a most peculiar man?"

"Exactly in what way, Miss Dorne?"

"In this: The ordinary man, when a woman shows any curiosity about
himself, answers with a fullness and particularity and eagerness which
seems to say, 'At last you have found a subject which interests me!'"

"Does he?"

"Is that the only reply you care to make?"

"I can think of none more adequate."

"Meaning that after my altogether too open display of curiosity
regarding you, I can still do nothing better than guess, without any
expectation that you, on your part, will deign to tell me whether I am
right or wrong. Very well; my first guess is that you have not done
much walking with young women on station platforms--certainly not much
of late."

"I'll try to do better, if you'll tell me how you know that?"

"You do very well. I was not criticising you, and I don't have to tell
why. Ask no questions; it is a clairvoyant diviner who is speaking."

"Divinity?"

"Diviner only. My second guess is that you have been abroad in far
lands."

"My railroad ticket showed as much as that."

"Pardon me, if it seriously injures your self-esteem; but I was not
sufficiently interested in you when you came aboard the train, to
observe your ticket. What I know is divined from the exceedingly odd
and reminiscent way in which you look at all things about you--at this
train, this station, the people who pass."

"You find nothing reminiscent, I suppose, in the way I look at you?"

"You do yourself injustice. You do not look at me at all, so I cannot
tell; but there could hardly be any reminiscence extending beyond this
morning, since you never saw me before then."

"No; this is all fresh experience."

"I hope it is not displeasing. My doubt