for you in the end not to know any of our names at all."

"Still--if I escape--I should like to know them."

"If you escape, you may be able to find out."

"Oh, well," he said, with assumed indifference, "since you don't want to
tell me--"

Going on with her painting, she allowed the subject to drop; but to him
the opportunity for conversation was too rare a thing to neglect. Not only
was his youthful impulse toward social self-expression normally strong,
but his pleasure in talking to a lady--a girl--was undeniable. Sometimes
in his moments of solitary meditation he said to himself that she was "not
his type of girl"; but the fact that he had been deprived of feminine
society for nearly three years made him ready to fall in love with any
one. If he did not precisely fall in love with this girl, it was only
because the situation precluded sentiment; and yet it was pleasant to sit
and watch her paint, and even torment her with his questions.

"So the little girl is one reason for your staying here. What's another?"

She betrayed her own taste for social communion by the readiness with
which she answered him--

"I don't know that I ought to tell you that; and yet I might as well. It's
just this: they're not very well off--so I can help. Naturally I like
that."

"You can help by footing the bills. That's all very fine if you enjoy it,
but everybody wouldn't."

"They would if they were in my position," she insisted. "When you can help
in any way it gives you a sense of being of use to some one. I'd rather
that people needed me, even if they didn't want me, than that they
shouldn't need me at all."

"They need your money," he declared, with a young man's outspokenness.
"That's what."

"But that's something, isn't it? When you've no place in the world you're
glad enough to get one, even if you have to buy it. My guardian and his
wife mayn't care much to have me, but it's some satisfaction to know that
they'd get along much worse if I weren't here."

"So should I," he laughed. "What I'm to do when I'm turned adrift without
you, Heaven only knows. It's curious--the effect imprisonment has on you.
It takes away your self-reliance. It gives you a helpless feeling, like a
baby. You want to be free--and yet you're almost afraid of the open air."

He was so much at home with her now that, sitting carelessly astride of
his chair, with his arms folded on the back, he felt a fraternal element
in their mutual relation. S