arted blithely on foot in the
direction Carlotta had taken.

She knew her man, of course. He found her, face down, under a tree,
looking pale and worn and bearing all the evidence of a severe mental
struggle. She rose in confusion when she heard his step, and retreated a
foot or two, with her hands out before her.

"How dare you?" she cried. "How dare you follow me! I--I have got to
have a little time alone. I have got to think things out."

He knew it was play-acting, but rather liked it; and, because he was
quite as skillful as she was, he struck a match on the trunk of the tree
and lighted a cigarette before he answered.

"I was afraid of this," he said, playing up. "You take it entirely too
hard. I am not really a villain, Carlotta."

It was the first time he had used her name.

"Sit down and let us talk things over."

She sat down at a safe distance, and looked across the little clearing
to him with the somber eyes that were her great asset.

"You can afford to be very calm," she said, "because this is only play
to you; I know it. I've known it all along. I'm a good listener and
not--unattractive. But what is play for you is not necessarily play for
me. I am going away from here."

For the first time, he found himself believing in her sincerity. Why,
the girl was white. He didn't want to hurt her. If she cried--he was at
the mercy of any woman who cried.

"Give up your training?"

"What else can I do? This sort of thing cannot go on, Dr. Max."

She did cry then--real tears; and he went over beside her and took her
in his arms.

"Don't do that," he said. "Please don't do that. You make me feel like
a scoundrel, and I've only been taking a little bit of happiness. That's
all. I swear it."

She lifted her head from his shoulder.

"You mean you are happy with me?"

"Very, very happy," said Dr. Max, and kissed her again on the lips.

The one element Carlotta had left out of her calculations was herself.
She had known the man, had taken the situation at its proper value. But
she had left out this important factor in the equation,--that factor
which in every relationship between man and woman determines the
equation,--the woman.

Into her calculating ambition had come a new and destroying element. She
who, like K. in his little room on the Street, had put aside love and
the things thereof, found that it would not be put aside. By the end of
her short vacation Carlotta Harrison was wildly in love w