r feet!"

Her eyes became even more eager. "You think I--I _might_ be a
woman who could?"

"Who knows, Miss Madison? I believe----" He stopped abruptly, then
in a lowered, graver voice asked: "Doesn't it somehow seem a
little queer to you when we call each other, `Miss Madison' and
`Mr. Corliss'?"

"Yes," she answered slowly; "it does."

"Doesn't it seem to you," he went on, in the same tone, "that we
only `Miss' and `Mister' each other in fun? That though you never
saw me until yesterday, we've gone pretty far beyond mere
surfaces? That we did in our talk, last night?"

"Yes," she repeated; "it does."

He let a pause follow, and then said huskily:

"How far are we going?"

"I don't know." She was barely audible; but she turned
deliberately, and there took place an eager exchange of looks
which continued a long while. At last, and without ending this
serious encounter, she whispered:

"How far do _you_ think?"

Mr. Corliss did not answer, and a peculiar phenomenon became
vaguely evident to the girl facing him: his eyes were still fixed
full upon hers, but he was not actually looking at her;
nevertheless, and with an extraordinarily acute attention, he was
unquestionably looking at something. The direct front of pupil and
iris did not waver from her; but for the time he was not aware of
her; had not even heard her question. Something in the outer field
of his vision had suddenly and completely engrossed him; something
in that nebulous and hazy background which we see, as we say, with
the white of the eye. Cora instinctively turned and looked behind
her, down the path.

There was no one in sight except a little girl and the elderly
burgess who had glanced over his shoulder at Cora as she entered
the park; and he was, in face, mien, and attire, so thoroughly the
unnoticeable, average man-on-the-street that she did not even
recall him as the looker-round of a little while ago. He was
strolling benevolently, the little girl clinging to one of his
hands, the other holding an apple; and a composite photograph of a
thousand grandfathers might have resulted in this man's picture.

As the man and little girl came slowly up the walk toward the
couple on the bench there was a faint tinkle at Cora's feet: her
companion's scarfpin, which had fallen from his tie. He was
maladroit about picking it up, trying with thumb and forefinger to
seize the pin itself, instead of the more readily grasped design
of small pearls