it, you will not refuse to discuss it with me, will you?"

"I do not think so," replied Annie tremulously. Would he never talk
of anything except that book? To her relief he did, to her relief and
scarcely acknowledged delight.

"Are you interested in curios, things from Egyptian tombs, for
instance?" he inquired with brutal masculine disregard of sequence.

Annie was bewildered, but she managed to reply that she thought she
might be. She had heard of Von Rosen's very interesting collection.

"I happened to meet your aunt, Miss Harriet, this afternoon," said
Von Rosen, "and I inquired if she were by any chance interested and
she said she was."

"Yes," said Annie. She had never before dreamed that her Aunt Harriet
was in the least interested in Egyptian tombs.

"I ventured to ask if she and her sister, Miss Susan, and you also,
if you cared to see it, would come some afternoon and look at my
collection," said Von Rosen.

Nobody could have dreamed from his casual tone how carefully he had
planned it all out: the visit of Annie and her aunts, the delicate
little tea served in the study, the possible little stroll with Annie
in his garden. Von Rosen knew that one of the aunts, Miss Harriet,
was afflicted with rose cold, and therefore, would probably not
accept his invitation to view his rose-garden, and he also knew that
it was improbable that both sisters would leave their aged mother. It
was, of course, a toss-up as to whether Miss Harriet or Miss Susan
would come. It was also a toss-up as to whether or not they might
both come, and leave little Annie as companion for the old lady. In
fact, he had to admit to himself that the latter contingency was the
more probable. He was well accustomed to being appropriated by elder
ladies, with the evident understanding that he preferred them. He
would simply have to make the best of it and show his collection as
gracefully as possible and leave out the rose-garden and the
delicious little tete-a-tete with this young rose of a girl and think
of something else. For Karl von Rosen in these days was accustoming
himself to a strange visage in his own mental looking-glass. He had
not altered his attitude toward women but toward one woman, and that
one was now sauntering beside him in the summer moonlight, her fluffy
white garments now and then blowing across his sober garb. He was
conscious of holding himself in a very tight rein. He wondered how
long men were usually about their