same room with her: it was as if he were looking at her through plate-glass. To-night, however, it was not like that. She looked like a younger sister of herself.

"Still painting?" he inquired.

"As much as they will let me."

"They?"

She leaned forward with a frown, folding her arms upon the table.

"What is the matter with men?" she demanded. "Why won't they believe a woman when she tells the truth?"

He was somewhat startled by the question, and by her earnestness.

"Just what do you mean?"

"Why can't they leave a woman alone?"

It was clear that he was not expected to answer, and so, with her permission, he lighted a cigarette and waited with considerable interest for her to go on.

For a moment she studied him, as if wondering if it were worth while to continue her confidence. Her acquaintance with Monte dated back ten years, when, as a girl of seventeen, she had met him on one of his rare week-end visits to the Warrens. She was then fresh from finishing school, and he was one of the very few men she had been allowed to meet in any more intimate way than merely to shake hands with in passing. She had been tremendously impressed. She could smile at it now. But, really, she had been like one of the younger sisters, and for a year or so after that he had been to her a sort of vague knight errant.

It was three years ago that her aunt had begun to travel with her, and after that she had seen Monte not oftener than once or twice a year, and then for scarcely more than a greeting and good-bye. On the other hand, Mrs. Warren had always talked and written to her a great deal about him. Chic and he had been roommates in college, and ever since had kept in close touch with each other by letter. The trivial gossip of Monte's life had always been passed on to Marjory, so that she had really for these last few years been following his movements and adventures month by month, until she felt in almost as intimate contact with him as with the Warrens. She had reason to think that, in turn, her movements were retailed to Monte. The design was obvious—and amusing.

On the whole, Marjory concluded that it was not especially worth while to burden him with her troubles; and yet, it was just because of that she was inclined to continue—in, however, a less serious mood. Monte had so few burdens of his own. That odd little smile—scarcely more than the ghost of a smile—returned to the corners of her mouth.

"To-night," she said, "I ran away from Teddy Hamilton, for all the world like a heroine of melodrama. Do you know Teddy?"

"Yes," he answered slowly, "I do."

He refrained with difficulty from voicing his opinion of the man, which he could have put into three words—"the little beast." But how did it happen that she, of all women, had been thrown into contact with this pale-faced Don Juan of the New York music-halls and Paris cafés?

"I lent Marie, my maid, one of my new hats and a heavy veil," she went on. "She came out and stepped into a taxi, with instructions to keep driving in a circle of a mile. Teddy followed in another machine. And"—she paused to look up and smile—"for all I know, he may still be following her round and round. I came on to the opera."

"Kind of tough on Marie," he commented, with his blue eyes reflecting a hearty relish of the situation.

"Marie will undoubtedly enjoy a nap," she said. "As for Teddy—well, he is generally out of funds, so I hope he may get into difficulties with the driver."

"He won't," declared Monte. "He'll probably end by borrowing a pour-boire of the driver."

She nodded.

"That is possible. He is very clever."

"The fact that he is still out of jail—" began Monte.

Then he checked himself. He was not a man to talk about other men—even about one so little of a man as Teddy Hamilton.

"Tell me what you know of him," she requested.

"I'd rather not," he answered.

"Is he as bad as that?" she queried thoughtfully. "But what I don't understand is why—why, then, he can sing like a white-robed choir-boy."

Monte looked serious.

"I've heard him," he admitted. "But it was generally after he had been sipping absinthe rather heavily. His specialty is 'The Rosary.'"

"And the barcarole from the 'Contes d'Hoffmann.'"

"And little Spanish serenades," he added.

"But if he's all bad inside?"

She raised those deep, dark eyes as a child might. She had been for ten years like one in a convent.

Covington shook his head.

"I can't explain it," he said. "Perhaps, in a way, it's because of that—because of the contrast. But I 've heard him do it. I 've heard him make a room full of those girls on Montmartre stop their dancing and gulp hard. But where—"

"Did I meet him?" she finished. "It was on the boat coming over this last time. You see— I 'm talking a great deal about myself."

"Please go on."

He had forgotten that her face was so young. The true lines of her features were scarcely more than sketched in, though that much had been done with a sure hand. Whatever was to come, he thought, must be added. There would be need of few erasures. Up to a certain point it was the face of any of those young women of gentle breeding that he met when at home—the inheritance of the best of many generations.

As she was sitting now, her head slightly turned, the arch of one brow blended in a perfect curve into her straight, thin nose. But the mouth and chin—they were firmer than one might have expected. If, not knowing her, he had seen her driving in the Bois or upon Rotten Row, he would have been curious about her title. It had always seemed to him that she should by rights have been Her Royal Highness Something or Other.

This was due partly to a certain air of serene security and a certain aloofness that characterized her. He felt it to a lesser degree to-night than ever before, but he made no mistake. He might be permitted to admire those features as one admires a beautiful portrait, but somewhere a barrier existed. There are faces that reflect the soul; there are faces that hide the soul.

"Please go on," he repeated, as she still hesitated.

She was trying to explain why it was that she was tempted at all to talk about herself to-night. Perhaps it was because she had been so long silent—for many years silent. Perhaps it was because Monte was so very impersonal that it was a good deal like talking out loud to herself, with the advantage of being able to do this without wondering if she were losing her wits. Then, too, after Teddy, Monte's straight-seeing blue eyes freshened her thoughts like a clean north wind. She always spoke of Monte as the most American man she knew; and by that she meant something direct and honest—something four-square.

"I met Teddy on the boat," she resumed. "I was traveling alone because—well, just because I wanted to be alone. You know, Aunt Kitty was very good to me, but I'd been with her every minute for more than ten years, and so I wanted to be by myself a little while. Right after she died, I went down to the farm—her farm in Connecticut—and thought I could be alone there. But—she left me a great deal of money, Monte."

Somehow, she could speak of such a thing to him. She was quite matter-of-fact about it.

"It was a great deal too much," she went on. "I did n't mind myself, because I could forget about it; but other people—they made me feel like a rabbit running before the hounds. Some one put the will in the papers, and people I'd never heard of began to write to me—dozens of them. Then men with all sorts of schemes—charities and gold mines and copper mines and oil wells and I don't know what all, came down there to see me: down there to the little farm, where I wanted to be alone. Of course, I could be out to them; but even then I was conscious that they were around. Some of them even waited until I ventured from the house, and waylaid me on the road.

"Then