poor, pale girl is adorable. I
wish she liked me!"

"What makes you think she doesn't like you?" Breckon asked.

"What? Women don't require anything to convince them that other women
can't bear them. They simply know it. I wonder what has happened to
her?"

"Why do you think anything has happened to her?"

"Why? Well, girls don't have that air of melancholy absence for nothing.
She is brooding upon something, you may be sure. But you have had so
many more opportunities than I! Do you mean that you haven't suspected a
tragical past far her?"

"I don't know," said Breckon, a little restively, "that I have allowed
myself to speculate about her past."

"That is, you oughtn't to have allowed yourself to do so. Well, there
I agree with you. But a woman may do so without impertinence, and I am
sure that Miss Kenton has a story. I have watched her, and her face has
told me everything but the story."

Breckon would not say that some such revelation had been made to him,
and in the absence of an answer from him Miss Rasmith asked, "Is she
cultivated, too?"

"Too?"

"Like her mother."

"Oh! I should say she had read a good dial. And she's bookish, yes, in a
simple-hearted kind of way."

"She asks you if you have read 'the book of the year,' and whether you
don't think the heroine is a beautiful character?"

"Not quite so bad as that. But if you care to be serious about her!"

"Oh, I do!"

"I doubt it. Then, I should say that she seems to have grown up in a
place where the interests are so material that a girl who was disposed
to be thoughtful would be thrown back upon reading for her society more
than in more intellectual centres--if there are such things. She has
been so much with books that she does not feel odd in speaking of them
as if they were the usual topics of conversation. It gives her a certain
quaintness."

"And that is what constitutes her charm?"

"I didn't know that we were speaking of her charm."

"No, that is true. But I was thinking of it. She fascinates me. Are they
going to get off at Boulogne?"

"No, they are going on to Rotterdam."

"To be sure! Boyne told me. And are you going on with them?"

"I thought we talked of my going to Paris." Breckon looked round at her,
and she made a gesture of deprecation.

"Why, of course! How could I forget? But I'm so much interested in Miss
Kenton that I can't think of anything else."

"Not even of Miss Rasmith?"

"Not even of Miss Rasmith. I