edge of ordinary men.

"That's a very good beginning," said she, with a little laugh that meant
much. "But don't despair. After all, girls are pretty much alike. I
was a girl once--it seems a long time ago. I thought then that I knew a
great deal about men. Alas! all that I have learned since is simply
that they know a great deal about me. Am I different from other women,
I wonder? Am I more shallow--more transparent? Was I ever an enigma to
you, Bertie?"

"You were always a woman," he said. "That is why----"

"That is why----"

"That is why I am here to-night. If you were not a true woman I should
be far away."

"You are far away--from me, Bertie."

"No, no! I am only beginning to appreciate you--to understand you."

"I am to be understood through the medium of Phyllis Ayrton? Isn't that
like looking at happiness through another's eyes?"

He did not appear to catch her meaning at once. He looked at her and
then his eyes went across the room to Phyllis. At the same instant the
performance on the piano ceased. Everyone said "Thanks, awfully good,"
and there were some audible yawns.

There was a brandy and soda yearning in the men's eyes.

"We'll get off to bed; someone may begin to play something else,"
whispered the hostess to one of her lady guests.

The men looked as if they had heard the suggestion and heartily approved
of it.

The next evening Ella was fortunate enough to get beside Herbert once
again--she had scarcely had an opportunity of exchanging a word with him
all day. He had been with Phyllis alone in the Canadian canoe. It only
held two comfortably, otherwise----But no one had volunteered to put
its capacity to the test. Ella had gone in one of the punts with four or
five of her guests; but the punt never overtook the canoe. It was those
of the guests who had been in the punt that afterward said it was very
funny to observe the chagrin of Queen Guinevere when she found that her
Sir Lancelot had discovered an Elaine.

"You have had a delightful day, I'm sure," said Ella. She had found him
at the bottom of the garden just before dinner. It was not for her he
was loitering there.

"Delightful? Perhaps. I shall know more about it ten years hence," he
replied.

"You are almost gruff as well as unintelligible," said she.

"I beg your pardon," he cried. "Pray forgive me, Ella."

"I'll forgive your gruffness if you make yourself intelligible," said
she. "You frighten me. Ten years hence? What