ee hat boxes. I'm afraid, Helen, we don't run on
the same rails, as our American cousins say."

There was a little pause. Millicent's words, apparently tossed
lightly into the air after a smoke spiral, had in them a touch of
bitterness, it might be of self analysis. Her guest seemed to take
thought before she answered:

"Perhaps the divergence is mainly in environment. And I have always
inclined to the more serious side of life. Even when we were together
in Brussels----"

"You? Serious? At Madam Berard's? I like that. Who was it that kicked
the plaster off the dormitory wall higher than her head? Who put
pepper in Signor Antonio's snuff box?"

Spencer saw the outer waves of a flush on Helen's cheeks. "This is
exceedingly interesting," he thought; "but I cannot even persuade
myself that I ought to listen any longer. Yet, if I rise now and walk
away they will know I heard every word."

Nevertheless, he meant to go, at the risk of their embarrassment;
but he waited for Helen's reply. She laughed, and the ripple of her
mirth was as musical as her voice, whereas many women dowered with
pleasantly modulated notes for ordinary conversation should be careful
never to indulge in laughter, which is less controllable and therefore
natural.

"That is the worst of having a past," she said. "Let me put it, then,
that entomology as a pursuit sternly represses frivolousness."

"Does entomology mean beetles?"

"My dear, if you asked Herr von Eulenberg that question he would sate
your curiosity with page extracts from one of his books. He has
written a whole volume to prove that the only true entoma, or
insects, are Condylopoda and Hexapoda, which means----"

"Cockroaches! Good gracious! To think of Helen Wynton, who once hit a
Belgian boy very hard on the nose for being rude, wasting her life on
such rubbish! And you actually seem to thrive on it. I do believe you
are far happier than I."

"At present I am envying you that trip to Champery. Why cannot some
fairy godmother call in at No. 5, Warburton Gardens, to-night and wave
over my awed head a wand that shall scatter sleeping car tickets and
banknotes galore, or at any rate sufficient thereof to take me to the
Engadine and back?"

"Ah, the Engadine. I am not going there this year, I think."

"Haven't you planned your tour yet?"

"No--that is, not exactly."

"Do you know, that is one of my greatest pleasures. With a last year's
Continental Bradshaw and a few tattere