where it
succeeds where sculpture, for instance, fails. Music is a sort of
panacea."

"Oh!" His monosyllable was a trifle disappointed. With such a cue she
might at least have admitted his music into the summary.

The light from the overhead lamps fell in a circle of comparative
radiance and he had time to note the charming modeling of her throat and
a certain delicate nobility in the curve of her brow, where the soft
hair merged with the dark shadowing of her hat brim.

"You haven't carried out your part of the contract yet," she reminded
him. "I've told you what, but you haven't told me why."

"I mean to. Are you waiting for some one?"

"I am waiting for a 'bus to take me home."

"Where are you going to let it take you? Where is your home, I mean?"

"The Square," she answered, "and there is the 'bus coming, to gather me
in, and you still haven't told me why I shocked your voice into that
undernote of astonishment."

Paul Burton smiled, and did not yet enlighten her. Instead he went on
stubbornly questioning. "The Square does not mean Madison or Union. I
have deductive genius enough to infer that, because they're not places
of homes. Is it Gramercy or Washington?"

The girl flashed her smile on him again and replied lightly.

"One enters my square under a marble arch and we who live there always
think of it as the Square."

"But Washington square is a long way," he remonstrated. "It's a far
journey to take alone."

The girl had stepped out beyond the curb and signaled, then as the 'bus
drew over and came to a stop, she nodded to the man as she started up
the stair to the roof. "Good-night, Mr. Burton," she called over her
shoulder. "You are a good custodian of secrets."

But the musician was climbing up after her and when she seated herself
at the front he took his place beside her. "I am going to answer all
questions put to me on the way down to the Square," he announced.

"But you have just complained that it's a far journey."

"I beg your pardon. I said it was a far journey to take alone."

She turned in her seat and looked at him. The lips and brow were
reserved, even grave, but in the green-gray eyes danced a truant
twinkle. As the heavy vehicle rumbled and lurched along the way where
the asphalt fell into shadow she became a graceful silhouette of
slenderness, but as they passed through the brighter zones about the
great opals swung from the lamp pillars, the dimpled little chin and
small nos