turn. "What is your name?" she asked.

"Errol. But every one calls me Ban."

"Haven't you ever told this to any one before?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Why should I?"

"I don't know really," hesitated the girl, "except that it seems almost
inhuman to keep one's self so shut off."

"It's nobody else's business."

"Yet you've told it to me. That's very charming of you."

"You said you'd be interested."

"So I am. It's an extraordinary life, though you don't seem to think
so."

"But I don't want to be extraordinary."

"Of course you do," she refuted promptly. "To be ordinary is--is--well,
it's like being a dust-colored beetle." She looked at him queerly.
"Doesn't Miss Van Arsdale know all this?"

"I don't see how she could. I've never told her."

"And she's never asked you anything?"

"Not a word. I don't quite see Miss Camilla asking any one questions
about themselves. Did she ask you?"

The girl's color deepened almost imperceptibly. "You're right," she
said. "There's a standard of breeding that we up-to-date people don't
attain. But I'm at least intelligent enough to recognize it. You reckon
her as a friend, don't you?"

"Why, yes; I suppose so."

"Do you suppose you'd ever come to reckon me as one?" she asked, half
bantering, half wistful.

"There won't be time. You're running away."

"Perhaps I might write you. I think I'd like to."

"Would you?" he murmured. "Why?"

"You ought to be greatly flattered," she reproved him. "Instead you
shoot a 'why' at me. Well; because you've got something I haven't got.
And when I find anything new like that, I always try to get some of it
for myself."

"I don't know what it could be, but--"

"Call it your philosophy of life. Your contentment. Or is it only
detachment? That can't last, you know."

He turned to her, vaguely disturbed as by a threat. "Why not?"

"You're too--well, distinctive. You're too rare and beautiful a
specimen. You'll be grabbed." She laughed softly.

"Who'll grab me?"

"How should I know? Life, probably. Grab you and dry you up and put you
in a case like the rest of us."

"Perhaps that's why I like to stay out here. At least I can be myself."

"Is that your fondest ambition?"

However much he may have been startled by the swift stab, he gave no
sign of hurt in his reply.

"Call it the line of least resistance. In any case, I shouldn't like to
be grabbed and dried up."

"Most of us are grabbed and catalogued from our birth,