he was looking down at the hotel register, to compute the bill of a
departing guest; but when she passed out she found him watching for her,
with some letters.

"I didn't know you were with us," he said, with his pensive smile, "till
I found your letters here, addressed to Mrs. Lander's care; and then I
put two and two together. It only shows how small the world is, don't
you think so? I've just got back from my vacation; I prefer to take
it in the fall of the year, because it's so much pleasanter to travel,
then. I suppose you didn't know I was here?"

"No, I didn't," said Clementina. "I never dreamed of such a thing."

"To be sure; why should you?" Fane reflected. "I've been here ever since
last spring. But I'll say this, Miss Claxon, that if it's the least
unpleasant to you, or the least disagreeable, or awakens any kind of
associations--"

"Oh, no!" Clementina protested, and Fane was spared the pain of saying
what he would do if it were.

He bowed, and she said sweetly, "It's pleasant to meet any one I've seen
before. I suppose you don't know how much it's changed at Middlemount
since you we' e thea." Fane answered blankly, while he felt in his
breast pocket, Oh, he presumed so; and she added: "Ha'dly any of the
same guests came back this summer, and they had more in July than they
had in August, Mrs. Atwell said. Mr. Mahtin, the chef, is gone, and
newly all the help is different."

Fane kept feeling in one pocket and then slapped himself over the other
pockets. "No," he said, "I haven't got it with me. I must have left it
in my room. I just received a letter from Frank--Mr. Gregory, you know,
I always call him Frank--and I thought I had it with me. He was asking
about Middlemount; and I wanted to read you what he said. But I'll find
it upstairs. He's out of college, now, and he's begun his studies in the
divinity school. He's at Andover. I don't know what to make of Frank,
oftentimes," the clerk continued, confidentially. "I tell him he's a
kind of a survival, in religion; he's so aesthetic." It seemed to
Fane that he had not meant aesthetic, exactly, but he could not ask
Clementina what the word was. He went on to say, "He's a grand good
fellow, Frank is, but he don't make enough allowance for human nature.
He's more like one of those old fashioned orthodox. I go in for having a
good time, so long as you don't do anybody else any hurt."

He left her, and went to receive the commands of a lady who was leani