swered; "but how can you? Why, we do not even
know each other's names!"

"No more we do, and I don't want to, do you?" He smiled down at her
undecided eyes. "I would rather think of you as Pierrette than Miss
anything, and I shall be Pierrot. It is a romance, Pierrette; will you
play it?"

"Yes," she answered slowly, but her eyes fell away from his.

CHAPTER XVII

"Aye, thought and brain were there, some kind
Of faculty that men mistake
For talent, when their wits are blind,--
An aptitude to mar and break
What others diligently make."

A. L. GORDON.

Impulse had always been a guiding factor in Robert Landon's life. If he
saw a thing and wanted it, impulse would prompt him to reach out his
hand and snatch it; if the thing were beyond his reach, he would
climb--if necessary--over the heart of his best friend to obtain it;
should it prove of very fragile substance and break in his hands, he
would throw it away, but its loss, or the possible harm he had inflicted
in his efforts to obtain it, brought no regrets. He made love
deliriously, on fire himself for the moment, but never once had he so
far forgot himself as to come from the flame in any way singed. Many
tragedies lay behind the man, for impulse is hardly a safe guide through
life; but he himself was essentially too level-headed, too selfish, to
be the one who suffered.

He had spoken and danced and made love to Joan on an impulse. Beyond
that, he set himself down seriously and painstakingly to win her. Most
women, he knew, like to be carried forward on the wings of a
swift-rushing desire, but there was some strange force of reserve behind
this girl's constant disregard of his real meaning in the game they
played. She was willing, almost anxious to be friends; it did not take
him long to find out how lonely and dreary had been the life she was
leading. She went out with him daily; it became a recognized thing for
him to fetch her in his small car every evening at office. Sometimes
they would dine together at one of the many little French restaurants in
Soho, and go to a theatre afterwards; sometimes they would just drive
about the crowded lighted streets, or slip into the Park for a stroll,
leaving the car in charge of some urchin for a couple of pennies. Since
he was out on the trail, as his friends would have said, every other
interest in his life was given up to his impulse to be