ing behind your back, mamma, only
Mr. Henderson won't tell his experience."

"Miss Eschelle is in such a forgiving humor tonight that she absolves
before any one has a chance to confess," he replied.

"Don't you think I am always so, Mr. Lyon?"

Mr. Lyon bowed. "I think that an opera-box with Miss Eschelle is the
easiest confessional in the world."

"That's something like a compliment. You see" (to Henderson) "how much
you Americans have to learn."

"Will you be my teacher?"

"Or your pupil," the girl said, in a low voice, standing near him as she
rose.

The play was over. In the robing and descending through the corridors
there were the usual chatter, meaning looks, confidential asides. It is
always at the last moment, in the hurry, as in a postscript, that woman
says what she means, or what for the moment she wishes to be thought to
mean. In the crowd on the main stairway the two parties saw each other
at a distance, but without speaking.

"Is it true that Lyon is 'epris' there?" Carmen whispered to Henderson
when she had scanned and thoroughly inventoried Margaret.

"You know as much as I do."

"Well, you did stay a long time," she said, in a lower tone.

As Margaret's party waited for their carriage she saw Mrs. Eschelle and
her daughter enter a shining coach, with footman and coachman in livery.
Henderson stood raising his hat. A little white hand was shaken to him
from the window, and a sweet, innocent face leaned forward--a face with
dark, eyes and golden hair, lit up with a radiant smile. That face for
the moment was New York to Margaret, and New York seemed a vain show.

Carmen threw herself back in her seat as if weary. Mrs. Eschelle sat
bolt-upright.

"What in the world, child, made you go on so tonight?"

"I don't know."

"What made you snub Mr. Lyon so often?"

"Did I? He won't mind much. Didn't you see, mother, that he was distrait
the moment he espied that girl? I'm not going to waste my time. I know
the signs. No fisheries imbroglio for me, thank you."

"Fish? Who said anything about fish?"

"Oh, the international business. Ask Mr. Henderson to explain it. The
English want to fish in our waters, I believe. I think Mr. Lyon has had
a nibble from a fresh-water fish. Perhaps it's the other way, and he's
hooked. There be fishers of men, you know, mother."

"You are a strange child, Carmen. I hope you will be civil to both of
them." And they rode on in silence.

VIII

In real