ty of breaking it, still puzzling
herself with speculations as to what had put it into his head to come,
said at random:--

"Oh, do tell me--how is old Pere Goriot?"

"Pere Goriot? I never heard of him."

"Oh, forgive me! It is a name we used to have, long ago, for Professor
Nicolovius."

A shadow crossed his brow. "He is extremely well, I believe."

"You are still glad that you ran off with him to live _tete-a-tete_ in a
bridal cottage?"

"Oh, I suppose so. Yes, certainly!"

His frank face betrayed that the topic was unwelcome to him. For he
hated all secrets, and this secret, from this girl, was particularly
obnoxious to him. And beyond all that part of it, how could he analyze
for anybody his periods of strong revolt against his association with
Henry G. Surface, followed by longer and stranger periods when, quite
apart from the fact that his word was given and regrets were vain, his
consciousness embraced it as having a certain positive value?

He rose restlessly, and in rising his eye fell upon the little clock on
the mantel.

"Good heavens!" broke from him. "I had no idea it was so late! I must go
directly. Directly."

"Oh, no, you mustn't think of it. Your visit to me has just begun--all
this time you have been calling on Beverley Byrd."

"Why do you think I came here to-night?" he asked abruptly.

Sharlee, from her large chair, smiled. "_I_ think to see me."

"Oh!--Yes, naturally, but--"

"Well, I think this is the call plainly due me from my Reunion party
last year."

"No! Not at all! At the same time, it has been since that day that I
have had you on my mind so much."

He said this in a perfectly matter-of-fact voice, but a certain
nervousness had broken through into his manner. He took a turn up and
down the room, and returned suddenly to his seat.

"Oh, have you had me on your mind?"

"Do you remember my saying that day," he began, resolutely, "that I was
not sure whether I had got the better of you or you had got the better
of me?"

"I remember very well."

"Well, I have come to tell you that--you have won."

He had plucked a pencil from the arsenal of them in his breast-pocket,
and with it was beating a noiseless tattoo on his open left palm. With
an effort he met her eyes.

"I say you were right," came from him nervously. "Don't you hear?"

"Was I? Won't you tell me just what you mean?"

"Don't you know?"

"Really I don't think I do. You see, when I used that expression t