"I will go the scientists one better and reconstruct you from a
voice." He put back his hand and drew up a chair. He was enjoying himself
immensely. "Now," impressively, "you are dark, dark and lovely and young,
and you are sweet as chocolate and stimulating as coffee. And you wear a
rose in your hair and silken skirts like poppy-petals, and the tiniest of
black slippers over white silk stockings; and you flutter an enormous fan
that sends the fragrance of the jasmine on your breast all through the
air, and you have a beautiful name--oh a name as enchanting as your
voice, have you not, Anita, Rosita, Chiquita, Pepita, Carmencita, and all
the rest of it?"

"You are impertinent, much too bold," she admonished. "I will not talk to
you any more if you are not quite respectful; but the first part of your
description was pretty. Let me, if I can, do even half so well. You,
senor, are rather tall and quite slender, no superfluous flesh, all
muscle, and your eyes are a dark gray and your hair is brown, so is your
face, by the way; and you have a cool, leisurely sort of manner, although
your speech is quite rapid, and you have a charming, oh, a most unusually
charming smile."

"But you know me!" cried Hayden naively. "Of course, of course," as her
laughter swelled, "I know you've flattered me to death," the red rising
in his tanned cheek, "with all that rot about my grin. But," speaking
louder in the effort to drown those trills and ripples of melodious
laughter, more elfishly mocking and elusive than ever, "your portrait of
me, no matter how grossly exaggerated, is in the main, correct."

"Still talking?" droned the menacing voice of Central.

"But it isn't fair," Hayden continued to protest to the Unknown. "You
have me at a disadvantage, and I am going to drop all courtesy and any
pretense of good manners. Now, are you ready? Yes? Well then, who are you
and what do you want?"

"Who am I? Ah, senor, a waif of the wind, adrift on the night's Plutonian
shore; but an hour or two ago, the gale caught me up in Spain and swept
me over the seas. Regard me as a voice, merely a voice that would hold
speech with so distinguished a naturalist."

"A naturalist!" exclaimed Hayden both disappointed and disconcerted. "You
have mistaken your man. I can lay no claims to any scientific
accomplishments or achievements."

"Oh, pardon!" There was an affected and exaggerated horror in her tones.
"I have made a mistake, oh, a great mistake. I