e to you, my boy, the pure delight of that moment; the
pride I felt in her beauty, the new and intoxicating sense of possession
born of the _tete-a-tete_. But if you could have seen the lovely shadow
her eyelashes made on her cheeks as she sat there opposite to me at our
daintily appointed little table, you might partly understand.

Fortunately there was a small bunch of flowers on each table, so that
ours was not conspicuous, save in superiority. She admired it, took out
a spray of lilac and tucked it into the neck of her dress, the stem
lying close against her white satin skin. Then, as she ate the _hors
d'[oe]uvres_, she sat silent and apparently thoughtful. It was not until
we had begun with the soup that she spoke again.

"I do hope you won't think me rude or inquisitive, Brown," was her
curiosity-provoking preface. "I don't mean to be either. But, you know,
you interest me a good deal. In America we haven't precisely a middle
class. It's all top and bottom with us, just like a tart with the inside
forgotten. There, one wouldn't--wouldn't be apt to meet anyone quite
like you. I--oh, I don't know how to put it. I'm afraid I began to say
something that I can't finish. But--let me see, what _shall_ I say?
Isn't it a pity that with your intelligence and--and manners, and all
you've learned, you can't get a position which would--would give
you--er--better opportunities?"

At the moment I thought that no position could give me a better
opportunity than I had; in fact, as I began to tell you in the first few
lines of this letter, I was inclined to believe it sent by Providence as
an unexpected way out of my difficulties. Here we were together in no
danger of being disturbed by outsiders (one doesn't count a waiter);
here was she in a benignant mood, interested in me, and inclined to
kindness. In another second I would have blurted out the whole truth,
when a voice seemed to say inside of me, "No, she is alone in this hotel
to-night with you. She is, in a way, at your mercy. You will be doing an
unchivalrous thing if, when she is practically deserted by her people
and thrown upon your protection, you proclaim yourself a lover in place
of a servant." That voice was right. Even you can't say it wasn't.

I swallowed my confession with a spoonful of soup, and nearly choked
over the combination.

"The fact is," I said desperately yet cautiously, "since you are kind
enough to take an interest, that I--er--am not exactly what