ry place." Discretion caught her in time; and something
else, in company with discretion, caught her, for she stopped short in
her talk and blushed.

They had taken possession of the bench beside the spring, by this time;
and Russell, his elbow on the back of the bench and his chin on his
hand, the better to look at her, had no guess at the cause of the blush,
but was content to find it lovely. At his first sight of Alice she had
seemed pretty in the particular way of being pretty that he happened
to like best; and, with every moment he spent with her, this prettiness
appeared to increase. He felt that he could not look at her enough: his
gaze followed the fluttering of the graceful hands in almost continual
gesture as she talked; then lifted happily to the vivacious face again.
She charmed him.

After her abrupt pause, she sighed, then looked at him with her eyebrows
lifted in a comedy appeal. "You haven't said you wouldn't give Henrietta
the chance," she said, in the softest voice that can still have a little
laugh running in it.

He was puzzled. "Give Henrietta the chance?"

"YOU know! You'll let me keep on being unfair, won't you? Not give the
other girls a chance to get even?"

He promised, heartily.

CHAPTER XV

Alice had said that no one who knew either Russell or herself would be
likely to see them in the park or upon the dingy street; but although
they returned by that same ungenteel thoroughfare they were seen by
a person who knew them both. Also, with some surprise on the part of
Russell, and something more poignant than surprise for Alice, they saw
this person.

All of the dingy street was ugly, but the greater part of it appeared to
be honest. The two pedestrians came upon a block or two, however, where
it offered suggestions of a less upright character, like a steady enough
workingman with a naughty book sticking out of his pocket. Three or four
dim shops, a single story in height, exhibited foul signboards, yet fair
enough so far as the wording went; one proclaiming a tobacconist, one
a junk-dealer, one a dispenser of "soft drinks and cigars." The most
credulous would have doubted these signboards; for the craft of the
modern tradesman is exerted to lure indoors the passing glance, since if
the glance is pleased the feet may follow; but this alleged tobacconist
and his neighbours had long been fond of dust on their windows,
evidently, and shades were pulled far down on the glass of their doo