oice saying, "Thank
you, I can find the way," his still buoyant step on the staircase, and
then saw his brown curls rising above the railing. The light streaming
through the open door of the sitting room into the half-lit hall had
partially dazzled him, and, already bewildered, he was still more
dazzled at the unexpected apparition of the smiling face and bright eyes
of Mrs. Horncastle standing in the doorway.

"You have fairly caught us," she said, with charming composure; "but I
had half a mind to let you wander round the hotel a little longer. Come
in." Barker followed her in mechanically, and she closed the door. "Now,
sit down," she said gayly, "and tell me how you knew we were here, and
what you mean by surprising us at this hour."

Barker's ready color always rose on meeting Mrs. Horncastle, for whom
he entertained a respectful admiration, not without some fear of her
worldly superiority. He flushed, bowed, and stared somewhat blankly
around the room, at the familiar walls, at the chair from which Mrs.
Horncastle had just risen, and finally at his wife's glove, which Mrs.
Horncastle had a moment before ostentatiously thrown on the table.
Seeing which she pounced upon it with assumed archness, and pretended to
conceal it.

"I had no idea my wife was here," he said at last, "and I was quite
surprised when the man told me, for she had not written to me about it."
As his face was brightening, she for the first time noticed that his
frank gray eyes had an abstracted look, and there was a faint line of
contraction on his youthful forehead. "Still less," he added, "did I
look for the pleasure of meeting you. For I only came here to inquire
about my old partner, Demorest, who arrived from Europe a few days ago,
and who should have reached Hymettus early this afternoon. But now I
hear he came all the way by coach instead of by rail, and got off at the
cross-road, and we must have passed each other on the different trails.
So my journey would have gone for nothing, only that I now shall have
the pleasure of going back with you and Kitty. It will be a lovely drive
by moonlight."

Relieved by this revelation, it was easy work for Mrs. Horncastle to
launch out into a playful, tantalizing, witty--but, I grieve to say,
entirely imaginative--account of her escapade with Mrs. Barker. How,
left alone at the San Francisco hotel while their gentlemen friends
were enjoying themselves at Hymettus, they resolved upon a little trip,