ves that you will see something
like this in to-morrow's paper: 'Lord Archie Beaumanoir entertained a
party of friends at the Embankment Hotel yesterday. At the next table
Miss Millicent Jaques, of the Wellington Theater, was lunching with a
pretty girl whom I did not know. Miss Jaques wore an exquisite,'
etc., etc. Fill in full details of my personal appearance, and you
have the complete paragraph. The public, the stupid, addle-headed
public, fatten on that sort of thing, and it keeps me going far more
effectively than my feeble attempts to warble a couple of songs which
you could sing far better if only you made up your mind to come on the
stage. But there! After such unwonted candor I must have a smoke. You
won't try a cigarette? Well, don't look so shocked. This isn't a
church, you know."

Spencer, who had listened with interest to Miss Jaques's outspoken
views, suddenly awoke to the fact that he was playing the part of an
eavesdropper. He had all an American's chivalrous instincts where
women were concerned, and his first impulse was to betake himself
and his letters to his own room. Yet, when all was said and done, he
was in a hotel; the girls were strangers, and likely to remain so;
and it was their own affair if they chose to indulge in unguarded
confidences. So he compromised with his scruples by pouring out a
glass of water, replacing the decanter on its tray with some degree of
noise. Then he struck an unnecessary match and applied it to his cigar
before opening the first of the Denver letters.

As his glance was momentarily diverted, he did not grasp the essential
fact that neither of the pair was disturbed by his well meant efforts.
Millicent Jaques was lighting a cigarette, and this, to a woman, is an
all absorbing achievement, while her friend was so new to her palatial
surroundings that she had not the least notion of the existence of
another open floor just above the level of her eyes.

"I don't know how in the world you manage to exist," went on the
actress, tilting herself back in her chair to watch the smoke curling
lazily upward. "What was it you said the other day when we met? You
are some sort of secretary and amanuensis to a scientist? Does that
mean typewriting? And what is the science?"

"Professor von Eulenberg is a well known man," was the quiet reply. "I
type his essays and reports, it is true; but I also assist in his
classification work, and it is very interesting."

"What does he cl