ent men and in
despair Archie gave up trying to account for him.

V

At midnight Seebrook and Walters came in from their card game.

"We've certainly had the best of you, papa! It has been a wonderful
evening!" exclaimed Miss Seebrook.

"I knew it was going to be a good party," said the Governor warmly. "I
regretted every moment I had to spend with my friends in Putnam Street.
And yet should auld acquaintance be forgot, you know!"

"You were perfectly lovely to that nice old lady and her frightened
little granddaughters. They will never forget you as long as they live!
And I'm afraid Mr. Comly will always remember me as the girl who kept
him all to herself for a whole evening."

"I didn't make it a hard job for you," Archie protested. "I shall mark
the evening with a white stone on the long journey of life."

"I hope, papa, you will add a word to my invitation to these gentlemen
to come and see us at home."

"Certainly," Seebrook assented cordially, drawing out his card-case.

"We shall be ready for a little sociability," remarked the Governor,
"when we return from the West. We are motoring from Portland to
Portland, with a few little side trips like this, and we ought to have
some good yarns to tell when we get back."

"You are not running off immediately?" asked Walters. "Mr. Seebrook and
I are really here on business, but we've been delayed and may have
another day's time to kill. We'd be glad to play around with you."

"It's most lamentable," replied the Governor, "that we've got to run
away tomorrow. It's now the hour when ghosts walk but we shall see you
in the morning."

In Archie's room the Governor hummed one of his favorite ballads as he
slipped out of his coat and picked a speck from his snowy waistcoat.
Then he produced a tiny phial from his pocket and touched his upper lip
with a drop of the contents.

"It's a very curious thing about perfumes," he said meditatively. "I
carry an assortment of these little bottles. The psychology of the thing
is most interesting. Fragrances differ astonishingly as to their
reactions upon the nerves. Only two hours ago I fortified myself for a
little foolishness that required nevertheless a steady hand by sniffing
the bouquet of a rare perfume known only to a few connoisseurs,--a
compound based upon attar of roses. But this that I have just had
recourse to is soothing and sedative. It is made from a rare flower
found only in the most inaccessible fastnesses