g strangely comforting in
his speech, for the little dancer's tears ceased as abruptly as they had
begun. She dashed a trembling hand across her eyes.

"Who's crying?" she said.

He uttered a brief, half-grudging laugh. "That's better. Now drink some
wine! Yes, I insist! You must eat something, too. You look
half-starved."

She accepted the wine, sitting in an acrobatic attitude on the floor
facing him. She drank it, and an odd sparkle of mischief shot up in her
great eyes. She surveyed him with an impish expression--much as a
grasshopper might survey a toad.

"Are you married?" she inquired, unexpectedly.

"No," said Merryon, shortly. "Why?"

She gave a little laugh that had a catch in it. "I was only thinking
that your wife wouldn't like me much. Women are so suspicious."

Merryon turned aside, and began to pour out a drink for himself. There
was something strangely elusive about this little creature whom Fortune
had flung to him. He wondered what he should do with her. Was she too
old for a foundling hospital?

"How old are you?" he asked, abruptly.

She did not answer.

He looked at her, frowning.

"Don't!" she said. "It's ugly. I'm not quite forty. How old are you?"

"What?" said Merryon.

"Not--quite--forty," she said again, with extreme distinctness. "I'm
small for my age, I know. But I shall never grow any more now. How old
did you say you were?"

Merryon's eyes regarded her piercingly. "I should like the truth," he
said, in his short, grim way.

She made a grimace that turned into an impish smile. "Then you must
stick to the things that matter," she said. "That is--nobody's
business."

He tried to look severe, but very curiously failed. He picked up a plate
of sandwiches to mask a momentary confusion, and offered it to her.

Again, with simplicity, she accepted, and there fell a silence between
them while she ate, her eyes again upon the fire. Her face, in repose,
was the saddest thing he had ever seen. More than ever did she make him
think of a child that had been hurt.

She finished her sandwich and sat for a while lost in thought. Merryon
leaned back in his chair, watching her. The little, pointed features
possessed no beauty, yet they had that which drew the attention
irresistibly. The delicate charm of her dancing was somehow expressed in
every line. There was fire, too,--a strange, bewitching fire,--behind
the thick black lashes.

Very suddenly that fire was turned upon him again