of air followed the entrance of the two men. She remembered now
that she had always felt that way with Burnaby; she had always felt as
if he were bringing news of pine forests and big empty countries she had
never seen but could dimly imagine. It was very exciting.

Burnaby paused and looked about the room doubtfully, then he chuckled
and came forward. "I haven't seen anything like this for three years,"
he said. "Roumanian palaces are furnished in the very latest bad taste."

He took Mrs. Ennis's outstretched hand and peered down at her with
narrowed eyelids. She received the further impression, an impression she
had almost forgotten in the intervening years, of height and leanness,
of dark eyes, and dark, crisp hair; a vibrant impression; something like
a chord of music struck sharply. Unconsciously she let her hand rest in
his for a moment, then she drew it away hastily. He was smiling and
talking to her.

"Rhoda! You ought to begin to look a bit older! You're thirty-six, if
you're a day! How do you do it? You look like a wise and rather naughty
little girl."

"Hush!" said Mrs. Ennis. "I wear my hair parted on one side like a
debutante to give me a head-start on all the knowing and subtle and
wicked people I have to put up with. While they are trying to break the
ice with an ingenue, I'm sizing them up."

Burnaby laughed. "Well, I'm not subtle," he said. He sank down into a
big chair across the fireplace from her. "I'm only awfully glad to be
back; and I'm good and simple and amenable, and willing to do nearly
anything any good American tells me to do. I love Americans."

"You won't for very long," Mrs. Ennis assured him dryly. "Particularly
if you stay in Washington more than a day." She was wondering how even
for a moment she had been able to forget Burnaby's vividness.

"No," laughed Burnaby, "I suppose not. But while the mood is on me,
don't disillusion me."

Mrs. Ennis looked across at him with a smile. "You'll meet two very
attractive people tonight, anyway," she said.

"Oh, yes!" He leaned forward. "I had forgotten--who are they?"

Mrs. Ennis spread her arms out along the chair. "There's Mary
Rochefort," she answered, "and there's Robert Pollen, who's supposed to
be the most alluring man alive."

"Is it doing him any good?"

"Well--" Mrs. Ennis looked up with a laugh.

"You don't like him? Or perhaps you do?"

Mrs. Ennis knit her brows in thought, her blue eyes dark with
conjecture. "I don't k