iss Thorn stood up.

"I leave you to persuade him," said she; "I have no doubt you will be
able to do it."

With that she left us, quite suddenly. Abruptly, I thought. And her
manner seemed to impress Miss Trevor.

"I wonder what is the matter with Marian," said she, and leaned over the
skylight. "Why, she has gone down to talk with the Celebrity."

"Isn't that rather natural?" I asked with asperity.

She turned to me with an amused expression.

"Her conduct seems to worry you vastly, Mr. Crocker. I noticed that you
were quite upset this morning in the cave. Why was it?"

"You must have imagined it," I said stiffly.

"I should like to know," she said, with the air of one trying to solve a
knotty problem, "I should like to know how many men are as blind as you."

"You are quite beyond me, Miss Trevor," I answered; "may I request you to
put that remark in other words?"

"I protest that you are a most unsatisfactory person," she went on, not
heeding my annoyance. "Most abnormally modest people are. If I were to
stick you with this hat-pin, for instance, you would accept the matter as
a positive insult."

"I certainly should," I said, laughing; "and, besides, it would be
painful."

"There you are," said she, exultingly; "I knew it. But I flatter myself
there are men who would go into an ecstasy of delight if I ran a hat-pin
into them. I am merely taking this as an illustration of my point."

"It is a very fine point," said I. "But some people take pleasure in odd
things. I can easily conceive of a man gallant enough to suffer the
agony for the sake of pleasing a pretty girl."

"I told you so," she pouted; "you have missed it entirely. You are
hopelessly blind on that side, and numb. Perhaps you didn't know that
you have had a hat-pin sticking in you for some time."

I began feeling myself, nervously.

"For more than a month," she cried, "and to think that you have never
felt it." My action was too much for her gravity, and she fell back
against the skylight in a fit of merriment, which threatened to wake her
father. And I hoped it would.

"It pleases you to speak in parables this morning," I said.

"Mr. Crocker," she began again, when she had regained her speech, "shall
I tell you of a great misfortune which might happen to a girl?"

"I should be pleased to hear it," I replied courteously.

"That misfortune, then, would be to fall in love with you."

"Happily that is not within the limits of probabi