change which
took place in him when once he found himself in the midst of the crowd
which lounged about this office.

"From a man to attract all eyes he became at once a man to attract none,
and slouched and looked so ordinary that I stared at him in
astonishment, little thinking that he had assumed this manner as a
disguise. Seeing me at a loss, he spoke up quite peremptorily:

"'Let us keep our secret, Olive, till you can appear in the world
full-fledged. And look here, darling, won't you go to the desk and ask
for a room? I am no hand at any such business.'

"Confounded at a proposition so unexpected, but too much under the spell
of my feelings to dispute his wishes, I faltered out:

"'But supposing they ask me to register?'

"At which he gave me a look which recalled the old days in Michigan, and
quietly sneered:

"'Give them a fictitious name. You have learned to write by this time,
have you not?'

"Stung by his taunt, but more in love with him than ever, for his
momentary display of passion had made him look both masterful and
handsome, I went up to the desk to do his bidding.

"'A room!' said I; and when asked to write our names in the book that
lay before me, I put down the first that suggested itself. I wrote with
my gloves on, which was why the writing looked so queer that it was
taken for a disguised hand.

"This done, he rejoined me, and we went up-stairs, and I was too happy
to be in his company again to wonder at his peculiarities or weigh the
consequences of the implicit confidence I accorded him. I was
desperately in love once more, and entered into every plan he proposed
without a thought beyond the joyous present. He was so handsome without
his hat; and when after some short delay he threw aside the duster, I
felt myself for the first time in my life in the presence of a finished
gentleman. Then his manner was so changed. He was so like his oldest and
best self, so dangerously like what he was in those long vanished hours
under the pines in my sand-swept home on the shores of Lake Michigan.
That he faltered at times and sank into strange spells of silence which
had something in them that made my breath come fitfully, did not awaken
my apprehension or rouse in me more than a passing curiosity. I thought
he regretted the past, and when, after one such pause in our
conversation, he drew out of his pocket a couple of keys tied together
with a string, and surveyed the card attached to them with