n were quite unavailing and, as he
decided after he had been home a week, equally unnecessary, for the
unaccustomed, piquant sense of anticipation remained with him and
gave a flavor to his days which in themselves were not lacking in
flavor; for merely to look, to loiter, to play at an exquisite and to
him exotic leisure was infinitely agreeable. The more delightful,
indeed, because it was merely temporary. Hayden had come to New York
with a definite purpose in view and his recreations were purely
incidental.

His cousin, Kitty Hampton, was expressing her envy of him one winter
morning as they were strolling down the Avenue together. Now it
should be explained that Mrs. Warren Hampton, even if she was small
to insignificance and blond to towness, thus increasing her
resemblance to a naughty little boy, was nevertheless a very
important person socially.

"I wish I could get up some of your nice, fresh enthusiasm, Robert,"
she said discontentedly. "Everything seems awfully stupid to me."

"That's because you've no imagination, Kitty. Fancy this seeming
stupid!" He drew in the cold air of the sparkling morning with a long
breath of satisfaction. "If your eyes had been traveling over the
glare of deserts or plunging into the gloom of tangled forests for
several years, you would think people and all this glitter and life
and motion a very delightful change. Why, everywhere I look I see
wonders. I expect anything to happen. Really, it would not surprise
me in the least to turn a corner and meet a fairy princess any
minute."

Kitty fell in with what she supposed was his mood. "We will turn the
very next corner and see," she said. "But how will you know her even
if we should meet her."

"I shall know her, never fear," he affirmed triumphantly, "whether
she wear a shabby little gown, or gauzes and diamonds. I shall look
into her eyes and know her at once."

He was laughing and yet there was something in his voice, a sort of
ring of hope or conviction, that caused Kitty to lift her pretty
sulky little face and look at him with a new interest. And Hayden was
not at all bad to look at. He was well set-up, with a brown, square
face, brown hair, gray eyes full of expression and good humor and an
unusually delightful smile, a smile that had won friends for him, of
every race and in every clime, and had more than once been effective
in extricating him from some difficulty into which his impulsive and
non-calculating nature ha