You say you obtained that coin from the porter on the Denver train?"

"Within two hours after I got aboard."

"Well, that coin purchased your name for me," she said, calmly,
candidly. He gasped.

"You--you don't mean that you--" he stammered.

"You see, Mr. Lorry, I wanted to know the name of a man who came nearest
my ideal of what an American should be. As soon as I saw you I knew
that you were the American as I had grown to know him through the
books,--big, strong, bold and comely. That is why I bought your name
of the porter. I shall always say that I know the name of an ideal
American,--Grenfall Lorry."

The ideal American was not unmoved. He was in a fever of fear and
happiness,--fear because he thought she was jesting, happiness because
he hoped she was not. He laughed awkwardly, absolutely unable to express
himself in words. Her frank statement staggered him almost beyond the
power of recovery.

There was joy in the knowledge that she had been attracted to him at
first sight, but there was bitterness in the thought that he had come to
her notice as a sort of specimen, the name of which she had sought as a
botanist would look for the name of an unknown flower.

"I--I am honored," he at last managed to say, his eyes gleaming with
embarrassment. "I trust you have not found your first judgment a faulty
one." He felt very foolish after this flat remark.

"I have remembered your name," she said, graciously. His heart swelled.

"There are a great many better Americans than I," he said. "You forget
our president and our statesmen."

"I thought they were mere politicians."

Grenfall Lorry, idealized, retired to his berth that night, his head
whirling with the emotions inspired by this strange, beautiful woman.
How lovely, how charming, how naive, how queenly, how indifferent, how
warm, how cold--how everything that puzzled him was she. His last waking
thought was:

"Guggenslocker! An angel with a name like that!"

IV. THE INVITATION EXTENDED

They were called by the porter early the next morning. The train was
pulling into Washington, five hours late. Grenfall wondered, as he
dressed, whether fortune would permit him to see much of her during her
brief day in the capital. He dreamed of a drive over the avenues, a
trip to the monument, a visit to the halls of congress, an inspection of
public buildings, a dinner at his mother's home, luncheon at the Ebbitt,
and other attentions which might give to