one so little of a man as Teddy Hamilton.

"Tell me what you know of him," she requested.

"I'd rather not," he answered.

"Is he as bad as that?" she queried thoughtfully. "But what I don't
understand is why--why, then, he can sing like a white-robed choir-boy."

Monte looked serious.

"I've heard him," he admitted. "But it was generally after he had been
sipping absinthe rather heavily. His specialty is 'The Rosary.'"

"And the barcarole from the 'Contes d'Hoffmann.'"

"And little Spanish serenades," he added.

"But if he's all bad inside?"

She raised those deep, dark eyes as a child might. She had been for
ten years like one in a convent.

Covington shook his head.

"I can't explain it," he said. "Perhaps, in a way, it's because of
that--because of the contrast. But I 've heard him do it. I 've heard
him make a room full of those girls on Montmartre stop their dancing
and gulp hard. But where--"

"Did I meet him?" she finished. "It was on the boat coming over this
last time. You see-- I 'm talking a great deal about myself."

"Please go on."

He had forgotten that her face was so young. The true lines of her
features were scarcely more than sketched in, though that much had been
done with a sure hand. Whatever was to come, he thought, must be
added. There would be need of few erasures. Up to a certain point it
was the face of any of those young women of gentle breeding that he met
when at home--the inheritance of the best of many generations.

As she was sitting now, her head slightly turned, the arch of one brow
blended in a perfect curve into her straight, thin nose. But the mouth
and chin--they were firmer than one might have expected. If, not
knowing her, he had seen her driving in the Bois or upon Rotten Row, he
would have been curious about her title. It had always seemed to him
that she should by rights have been Her Royal Highness Something or
Other.

This was due partly to a certain air of serene security and a certain
aloofness that characterized her. He felt it to a lesser degree
to-night than ever before, but he made no mistake. He might be
permitted to admire those features as one admires a beautiful portrait,
but somewhere a barrier existed. There are faces that reflect the
soul; there are faces that hide the soul.

"Please go on," he repeated, as she still hesitated.

She was trying to explain why it was that she was tempted at all to
talk about herself t