hen you wish to be," she said,
relenting a trifle; "but you're the first man I ever had promise to
write me a letter that I admitted I should welcome, and then had the
impudence to forget me. The one thing a woman can't forget is to be
forgotten."

Jimmy felt decidedly perturbed by this statement. He wondered what she
would say if he boldly admitted that he had in reality forgotten her
very name and where she came from, and then followed it with a
confession that since the first day he had met her in New York some
months ago, he had made amends by thinking of her continuously
throughout his spare time. But he did not dare. He feared banishment,
and that, he concluded, desperately, would be worse than death.
Something of his mental distress must have been observable, for the girl
suddenly relented, smiled a trifle and then said, "Well, perhaps I can
indulge myself--not you, understand?--by going somewhere."

She regained her palette, and turned toward her easel with a
businesslike air, quite as if she were a painter for a livelihood, and
said, "Now suppose you run along and let me work. You can come back here
for me at--say--one o'clock, and take me to luncheon; that is--if you're
not too busy!"

And Jimmy, transported with delight, made a vast pretense of business
and hastened away, lest she change her mind. He had the wisdom to let
well enough alone, and knew that time is the best medicine for
annoyance. But he was there in MacDougall Alley,--just the same--with
marvelous punctuality.

And there can be no question that he was a master host when it came to
luncheons, dinners, suppers, or midnight lunch counters. With him it was
an art, cultivated to the highest point of efficiency. Moreover,
timorous and fearful lest he blunderingly lose his advantages, he did
not press his suit too far and, as a result, Mary Allen forgot his
seeming neglect. There was but one embarrassing moment when, after a
moment's silence she said, "Do tell me, is there anything at all new
down home? Dad is so uncommunicative that he never has much to say about
the town itself, and everyone else is too busy to write me."

"Nothing new that I noticed when I was there last," said Jimmy. "Of
course, being on the road all the time I'm--well--I'm so busy
that--ummmh! Isn't that our waiter? Some of those pears over there on
that other table look good enough to eat and--wish we could get some
strawberries! Do you like hot-house grapes?"

He might