out her hand.

"I really believe you were going to snub me."

"Then you haven't given me up?"

"Never mind what I have or have not done. Walk with me. I am going to
talk plainly to you. If what I say is distasteful, don't hesitate to
interrupt me. You interest me, partly because you act like a boy,
partly because you are a man."

"I haven't any manners."

"They need shaking up and readjusting. I have just been musing over a
remarkable thing, that no two objects are alike. Even the most
accurate machinery can not produce two nails without variation. So it
is with humans. You look so like the man I know back home that it is
impossible not to ponder over you." She smiled into his face. "Why
should nature produce two persons who are mistaken for each other, and
yet give them two souls, two intellects, totally different?"

"I have often wondered."

"Is nature experimenting, or is she slyly playing a trick on humanity?"

"Let us call it a trick; by all means, let us call it that."

"Your tone . . ."

"Yes, yes," impatiently; "you are going to say that it sounds bitter.
But why should another man have a face like mine, when we have nothing
in common? What right has he to look like me?"

"It is a puzzle," Elsa admitted.

"This man who looks like me--I have no doubt it affects you
oddly--probably lives in ease; never knew what a buffet meant, never
knew what a care was, has everything he wants; in fact, a gentleman of
your own class, whose likes and dislikes are cut from the same pattern
as your own. Well, that is as it should be. A woman such as you are
ought to marry an equal, a man whose mind and manners are fitted to the
high place he holds in your affection and in your world. How many
worlds there are, man-made and heaven-made, and each as deadly as the
other, as cold and implacable! To you, who have been kind to me, I
have acted like a fool. The truth is, I've been skulking. My vanity
was hurt. I had the idea that it was myself and not my resemblance
that appealed to your interest. What makes you trust me?" bluntly; and
he stopped as he asked the question.

"Why, I don't know," blankly. Instantly she recovered herself. "But I
do trust you." She walked on, and perforce he fell into her stride.

"It is because you trust the other man."

"Thanks. That is it precisely; and for nearly two weeks I've been
trying to solve that very thing."

After a pause he asked: "Have you ever read Rea