im at Asquith."

Miss Thorn straightened herself and made a gesture of impatience.

"An incognito!" she cried. "But you have taken another man's name. And
you already had his face and figure!"

I jumped.

"That is so," he calmly returned; "the name was ready to hand, and so I
took it. I don't imagine it will make any difference to him. It's only a
whim of mine, and with me there's no accounting for a whim. I make it
a point to gratify every one that strikes me. I confess to being
eccentric, you know."

"You must get an enormous amount of gratification out of this," she said
dryly. "What if the other man should happen along?"

"Scarcely at Asquith."

"I have known stranger things to occur," said she.

The Celebrity smiled and smoked.

"I'll wager, now," he went on, "that you little thought to find me
here incognito. But it is delicious, I assure you, to lead once more a
commonplace and unmolested existence."

"Delightful," said Miss Thorn.

"People never consider an author apart from his work, you know, and
I confess I had a desire to find out how I would get along. And there
comes a time when a man wishes he had never written a book, and a
longing to be sought after for his own sake and to be judged on his own
merits. And then it is a great relief to feel that one is not at the
beck and call of any one and every one wherever one goes, and to know
that one is free to choose one's own companions and do as one wishes."

"The sentiment is good," Miss Thorn agreed, "very good. But doesn't it
seem a little odd, Mr. Crocker," she continued, appealing to me, "that
a man should take the pains to advertise a trip to Europe in order to
gratify a whim of this sort?"

"It is indeed incomprehensible to me," I replied, with a kind of grim
pleasure, "but you must remember that I have always led a commonplace
existence."

Although the Celebrity was almost impervious to sarcasm, he was now
beginning to exhibit visible signs of uneasiness, the consciousness
dawning upon him that his eccentricity was not receiving the ovation it
merited. It was with a palpable relief that he heard the first warning
notes of the figure.

"Am I to understand that you wish me to do my part in concealing your
identity?" asked Miss Thorn, cutting him short as he was expressing
pleasure at her arrival.

"If you will be so kind," he answered, and departed with a bow. There
was a mischievous mirth in her eye as she took her place in the window