ed stupidly.

March forbore to take advantage of him. "Oh, yes. We saw you out at
Belvedere this afternoon. Mrs. March thought for a moment that you meant
not to see us. A woman likes to exercise her imagination in those little
flights."

"I never dreamed of your being there--I never saw--" Burnamy began.

"Of course not. Neither did Mrs. Etkins, nor Miss Etkins; she was looking
very pretty. Have you been here some time?"

"Not long. A week or so. I've been at the parade at Wurzburg."

"At Wurzburg! Ah, how little the world is, or how large Wurzburg is! We
were there nearly a week, and we pervaded the place. But there was a
great crowd for you to hide in from us. What had I better take?" A waiter
had come up, and was standing at March's elbow. "I suppose I mustn't sit
here without ordering something?"

"White wine and selters," said Burnamy vaguely.

"The very thing! Why didn't I think of it? It's a divine drink: it
satisfies without filling. I had it a night or two before we left home,
in the Madison Square Roof Garden. Have you seen 'Every Other Week'
lately?"

"No," said Burnamy, with more spirit than he had yet shown.

"We've just got our mail from Nuremberg. The last number has a poem in it
that I rather like." March laughed to see the young fellow's face light
up with joyful consciousness. "Come round to my hotel, after you're tired
here, and I'll let you see it. There's no hurry. Did you notice the
little children with their lanterns, as you came along? It's the gentlest
effect that a warlike memory ever came to. The French themselves couldn't
have minded those innocents carrying those soft lights on the day of
their disaster. You ought to get something out of that, and I've got a
subject in trust for you from Rose Adding. He and his mother were at
Wurzburg; I'm sorry to say the poor little chap didn't seem very well.
They've gone to Holland for the sea air." March had been talking for
quantity in compassion of the embarrassment in which Burnamy seemed
bound; but he questioned how far he ought to bring comfort to the young
fellow merely because he liked him. So far as he could make out, Burnamy
had been doing rather less than nothing to retrieve himself since they
had met; and it was by an impulse that he could not have logically
defended to Mrs. March that he resumed. "We found another friend of yours
in Wurzburg: Mr. Stoller."

"Mr. Stoller?" Burnamy faintly echoed.

"Yes; he was there to give his