cked, as a tentative touch soon told. He had
not concluded its examination when a step and rustle behind him
betokened a sudden entrance.

"Miss Geraldine Norris!" a voice broke upon the air,--a voice that he
had not before heard, and he turned abruptly to greet the lady as she
formally introduced herself.

A veritable Titania she seemed as she swayed in the doorway. She was a
little thing, delicately built, slender yet not thin, with lustrous
golden hair, large, well-opened, dark blue eyes, a complexion daintily
white and roseate,--a fairy-like presence indeed, but with a prosaic,
matter-of-fact manner and a dogmatic pose of laying down the law.

Gordon could never have imagined himself so disconcerted as when she
advanced upon him with the caustic query, "Why did you not ask Mrs.
Keene for her husband's keys? Surely that is simple enough!" She flung a
bunch of keys on a steel ring down upon the table. "Heavens! to be
roused from my well-earned slumbers at day-break to solve this problem!
'Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!'" She mimicked Mrs. Keene's urgency, then broke
out laughing.

"Now," she demanded, all unaffected by his mien of surprised and
offended dignity, "do you think yourself equal to the task of fitting
these keys,--or shall I lend you my strong right arm?"

It is to be doubted if Gordon had ever experienced such open ridicule as
when she came smiling up to the table, drawing back the sleeve of her
gown from her delicate dimpled wrist. She wore a white dress, such as
one never sees save in that Southern country, so softly sheer, falling
in such graceful, floating lines, with a deep, plain hem and no touch of
garniture save, perhaps, an edge of old lace on the surplice neck. The
cut of the dress showed a triangular section of her soft white chest and
all the firm modelling of her throat and chin. It was evidently not a
new gown, for a rent in one of the sleeves had been sewed up somewhat
too obviously, and there was a darn on the shoulder where a rose-bush
had snagged the fabric. A belt of black velvet, with long, floating
sash-ends, was about her waist, and a band of black velvet held in place
her shining hair.

"I am sorry to have been the occasion of disturbing you," he said with
stiff formality, "and I am very much obliged, certainly," he added, as
he took up the keys.

"I may consider myself dismissed from the presence?" she asked saucily.
"Then, I will permit myself a cup of chocolate and a roll, and be r