ecomes so great and so vast and overmastering that her thought goes
slipping away--away from the gloomy woods to enjoy stolen, brief, bright
glimpses of the world? Is that beyond your imagination?"

"It is not at all beyond my imagination," he said modestly, "but if you
are trying to impress upon me the fact that you are no more real than my
fancy has once or twice suggested, it brings up a nice moral question. Am
I justified in handing over to a chilly ghost a valuable and beautiful
ornament belonging to some one else?"

She laughed outright, frankly amused. "That is a question you will have
to decide for yourself," she said demurely. "You can't expect me to help
you."

"Very well," he replied with equal promptitude. "I refuse any further
responsibility and leave it entirely to your conscience."

"Are you--do you live in New York?" The carnation deepened slightly in
her cheek at this personal question.

"I was born here," he replied. "I've lived here all my life that I
haven't been away from it." They both burst out laughing at this proof of
his ancestry.

"Let's talk on the two most interesting subjects in the world," he said,
leaning forward as if struck by a sudden inspiration, "yourself and
myself. I will begin at the beginning and tell you everything I know or
have ever heard about myself and then you do the same."

"But no one ever knows when to stop when he or she begins to talk about
himself or herself," she objected, and again the shyness crept into her
voice. "You would occupy a thousand and one nights in the recital, and
you have only"--she glanced at a tiny watch--"you have only ten minutes."

"Must Cinderella leave the ball exactly on the stroke of nine?"

"Certainly. Her pumpkin coach awaits her at that hour, and you know what
happens to the pumpkin coach and the coachman and footmen if she keeps
them waiting a minute overtime."

He sighed. "Well, I see that I must be dreadfully brief in what I have to
say; and this is it. I have asked no reward for returning you your
trinket, have I? But that does not absolve you from the courtesy of
offering one; now, it seems to me that it is not at all amiss, in fact it
is quite fitting, that I should dictate the terms of it. I am sure that
this attitude of mine appeals, if not to your generosity, to your sense
of justice," He paused politely.

"I can at least see the position I put myself in if I decline to admit
it," she parried.

"Oh, I am sure of you