she was going to put in her mouth, "I wonder whether you have the faintest
idea who I am and what I am and what I'm doing here all by myself, and why
you and I are lunching together in this delightful fashion. You have told
me all about yourself--but you seem to take me for granted."

She was ever so little piqued at his apparent indifference. But if men like
Septimus Dix did not take women for granted, where would be the chivalry
and faith of the children of the world? He accepted her unquestioningly as
the simple Trojan accepted the Olympian lady who appeared to him clad in
grace (but otherwise scantily) from a rosy cloud.

"You are yourself," he said, "and that has been enough for me."

"How do you know I'm not an adventuress? There are heaps of them, people
say, in this place. I might be a designing thief of a woman."

"I offered you the charge of my money the other night."

"Was that why you did it? To test me?" she asked.

He reddened and started as if stung. She saw the hurt instantly, and with a
gush of remorse begged for forgiveness.

"No. I didn't mean it. It was horrid of me. It is not in your nature to
think such a thing. Forgive me."

Frankly, impulsively, she stretched her hand across the table. He touched
it timidly with his ineffectual fingers, not knowing what to do with it,
vaguely wondering whether he should raise it to his lips, and so kept
touching it, until she pressed his fingers in a little grip of
friendliness, and withdrew it with a laugh.

"Do you know, I still have that money," he said, pulling a handful of great
five-louis pieces from his pocket. "I can't spend it. I've tried to. I
bought a dog yesterday but he wanted to bite me and I had to give him to
the hotel porter. All this gold makes such a bulge in my pocket."

When Zora explained that the coins were only used as counters and could be
changed for notes at the rooms, he was astonished at her sapience. He had
never thought of it. Thus Zora regained her sense of superiority.

This lunch was the first of many meals they had together; and meals led to
drives and excursions, and to evenings at the theater. If she desired still
further to convince the wretch with the evil eyes of her befriended state,
she succeeded; but the wretch and his friends speculated evilly on the
relations between her and Septimus Dix. They credited her with pots of
money. Zora, however, walked serene, unconscious of slander, enjoying
herself prodigiously