or to approach too near the old-fashioned stiff and stately house.
For fear of meeting some one, or a dread of some sudden encounter? With
Miss Van Rolsen's niece? So far he had not seen her since that first
day. Perhaps he congratulated himself on his good fortune in this
respect. If so, he reckoned without his host.

It is possible for two people to frequent the same house for quite a
while without meeting when one of them lives on the avenue side and
flits back and forth via the front steps, while the other comes and goes
only by the subterranean route; but, sooner or later, though belonging
to widely different worlds, these two are bound to come face to face,
even in spite of the determination of one of the persons to avert such a
contingency!

Mr. Heatherbloom always peered carefully about before venturing from the
house with his pampered charges; he was no less watchfully alert when he
returned. He could not, however, having only five senses, tell when the
front door might be suddenly opened at an inopportune moment. It was
opened, this very morning, on the third day of his probation at such a
moment. And he had been planning, after reading the newspaper article in
the park, to tender his resignation that very afternoon!

It availed him nothing now to regret indecision, his being partly
coerced by the masterful mistress of the house into remaining as long
as he had remained; or to lament that other sentiment, conspiring to
this end--the desire or determination, not to flee from what he most
feared. Empty bravado! If he could but flee now! But there was no
fleeing, turning, retreating, or evading. The issue had to be met.

Miss Dalrymple, gowned in a filmy material which lent an evanescent
charm to her slender figure, came down the front steps as he was about
to enter the area way below. The girl looked at him and her eyes
suddenly widened; she stopped. Mr. Heatherbloom, quite pale, bowed and
would have gone on, when something in her look, or the first word that
fell from her lips, held him.

"You!" she said, as if she did not at all comprehend.

He repaid her regard with less steady look; he had to say something and
he didn't wish to. Why couldn't people just meet and pass on, the way
dumb creatures do? The gift of speech has its disadvantages--on
occasions; it forces one to insufficient answer or superfluous
explanation. "Yes," he said, "your--Miss Van Rolsen engaged me. I
didn't really want to stay, but it