the table, and now he smiled up at her like a mischievous, cheeky school‑boy. Even the most prejudiced person could but acknowledge that Hayden had a most delightful smile.

"Mystery," he replied.

Her eyelashes lay on her cheek, long, black eyelashes on a cheek of cream, with the faintest, the very faintest stain of carnation. She was drawing designs on the tablecloth with her fork. She started slightly, but if she felt any perturbation of spirit, she gave no sign further of it, and yet Hayden knew intuitively that he had said just the thing he should have been most careful to avoid.

"Ah, yes," she said at last slowly. "I dare say it does look like that. I did not think of it in that way. I'm afraid I was thinking only of expediency."

"And expediency to you apparently spells mystery to me," he said.

She made an impatient gesture. It struck him now that she was really annoyed. "I can not help it if you see it that way." She strove to make her voice icy.

"Wouldn't any one?" he persisted.

"Perhaps." She appeared to waver.

"You must admit," he continued, perversely pursuing the subject, "that you are rather mysterious yourself. Why, you appeared so suddenly and noiselessly beside me at the opera the other night—"

"My mother was to meet me there," she interrupted him, "but she disappointed me."

"And then as suddenly and noiselessly you disappeared, that truly, if I had not found the buckle of your shoe, I should never afterward have been successful in assuring myself that you had really been there."

She looked at him now with a sparkle of amusement in her eyes, and he experienced a quick sense of delight that violet eyes could be merry.

"Perhaps I was not really there at all," she laughed. It was evident that she had thrown aside the distrust and distress of a few moments before. "Listen"—leaning forward and speaking with more animation and assurance than she had yet shown—"I will construct a romance for you, a romance of mystery, since you seem determined to have mystery. Can you not fancy a woman, young, eager, interested in all sorts of things, and shut off from them all, living somewhere in the depths of the woods and consumed with longing for the intense and changing life of the city, whose varied phases only seem the more vivid and interesting when heightened by distance; and she dreams of this—this lonely girl—until her longing becomes 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 your position," he assured her. "I take that for granted. No one with a spark of kindly feeling could look at this matter except in one way. Now, you must admit that I have behaved beautifully. I have made no attempt to surprise your reticence, or even to discover your name. Truly, I haven't made the faintest effort to entrap you into any revelations, have I? Now, I am sure that we must know quantities of the same people, and all I ask is that you mention some of your engagements to me for the coming fortnight. Suppose, for instance, you were to say: 'I am going to be at the Goddards to‑morrow afternoon about five. Wednesday, I am to dine at the Symmeses. Thursday, at the Hamptons.'"

Did she give a little start, or was it his fancy? At any rate she followed him with unmistakable interest, and when he had finished she leaned back in her chair with a ripple of low laughter.

"I do not believe we will begin that," she said. "It's like a game and we could go on indefinitely mentioning names on the strength of finding a mutual acquaintance. No, I am something of a fatalist. I think I will let events take their course. If we are to meet again, why, we are. If not, why, all our poor efforts can not compass it. Ah, it is nine o'clock, on the very stroke! Good night." She smiled graciously, charmingly. "And thank you again for so kindly restoring my property."

It was a very distinct dismissal. Hayden rose at once. "But," he protested before he took a step to depart, "you can not leave me this way. The only way I can think of you is as 'The Lady with the Butterflies,' and it is too cumbersome a title. It sounds like the name of a picture. It is such a catalogue‑y title."

"It is really," she agreed with him. "There is no doubt about it. I am sorry," demurely, black lashes again on cheeks of cream, no, carnation. She did not mention her name and Hayden's face fell.

"I wonder if you know my cousin, Kitty Hampton," he said at a venture.

"My pumpkin coach!" she exclaimed, moving toward the door.

"But my reward!" he cried. "I refuse to let you go without bestowing it. It is not honest."

She sighed and she smiled, she flushed and wavered. "Then take this assurance," she said, as one driven to a corner. "Believe me when I tell you that when you wish to see me I shall not be hard to find. I have reason to think that you will find it very easy."