atch and left without touching anything.

"I want to get the nine-thirty, Margie," he said, coming back with his
hat in his hand. "I may not be out to dinner. Tell Miss Letitia, will
you?" He turned to go, but on second thought came back to me and held
out his hand.

"I may not see you again," he began.

"Not if I see you first," I interrupted. He glanced at my mutilated
features and smiled.

"I have made you a Maitland," he said. "I didn't think that anything but
a prodigal Nature could duplicate Miss Letitia's nose! I'm honestly
sorry, Mr. Knox, and if you do not want Miss Jane at that bump with a
cold silver knife and some butter, you'd better duck before she comes
down. Good-by, Margie."

I think the girl was as much baffled as I was by the change in his
manner when he spoke to her. His smile faded and he hardly met her eyes:
I thought that his aloofness puzzled rather than hurt her. When the
house door had closed behind him, she dropped her chin in her hand and
looked across the table.

"You did not tell me the truth last night, Mr. Knox," she said. "I have
never seen Harry look like that. Something has happened to him."

"He was robbed of his traveling-bag," I explained, on Fred's theory that
half a truth is better than a poor lie. "It's a humiliating experience,
I believe. A man will throw away thousands, or gamble them away, with
more equanimity than he'll see some one making off with his hair brushes
or his clean collars."

"His traveling-bag!" she repeated scornfully. "Mr. Knox, something has
happened to my father, and you and Harry are hiding it from me."

"On my honor, it is nothing of the sort," I hastened to assure her. "I
saw him for only a few minutes, just long enough for him to wreck my
appearance."

"He did not speak of father?"

"No."

She got up and crossing to the wooden mantel, put her arms upon it and
leaned her head against them. "I wanted to ask him," she said drearily,
"but I am afraid to. Suppose he doesn't know and I should tell him! He
would go to Mr. Schwartz at once, and Mr. Schwartz is treacherous. The
papers would get it, too."

Her eyes filled with tears, and I felt as awkward as a man always does
when a woman begins to cry. If he knows her well enough he can go over
and pat her on the shoulder and assure her it is going to be all right.
If he does not know her, and there are two maiden aunts likely to come
in at any minute, he sits still, as I did, and waits until the