t
at once."

He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His
long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown.

"It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business
for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time--maybe only for a
few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion."

Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly
about his shoulders.

"My instincts," he replied, "are away from the crowd. I explained that
to you when we first met, Mr. Magee."

"Any man," commented Mr. Max, "ought to be able to strangle his
instincts for a good salary, payable in advance."

"You come here," said the hermit with annoyance, "and you bring with you
the sentiments of the outside world--the world I have foresworn. Don't
do it. I ask you."

"I don't get you," reflected Mr. Max. "No, pal, I don't quite grab this
hermit game. It ain't human nature, I say. Way up here miles from the
little brass rail and the sporting extra, and other things that make
life worth living. It's beyond me."

"I'm not asking your approval," replied the hermit. "All I ask is to be
let alone."

"Let me speak," said Miss Norton. "Mr. Peters and I have been friends,
you might say, for three years. It was three years ago my awed eyes
first fell upon him, selling his post-cards at the inn. He was to me
then--the true romance--the man to whom the world means nothing without
a certain woman at his side. That is what he has meant to all the girls
who came to Baldpate. He isn't going to shatter my ideal of him--he
isn't going to refuse a lady in distress. You will come for just a
little while, won't you, Mr. Peters?"

But Peters shook his head again.

"I dislike women as a sex," he said, "but I've always been gentle and
easy with isolated examples of 'em. It ain't my style to turn 'em down.
But this is asking too much. I'm sorry. But I got to be true to my
oath--I got to be a hermit."

"Maybe," sneered Mr. Max, "he's got good reason for being a hermit.
Maybe there's brass buttons and blue uniforms mixed up in it."

"You come from the great world of suspicion," answered the hermit,
turning reproving eyes upon him. "Your talk is natural--it goes with the
life you lead. But it isn't true."

"And Mr. Max is the last who should insinuate," rebuked Mr. Magee. "Why,
only last night he denounced suspicion, and bemoaned the fact that there
is so much of it in the world