R. D., I'll call him for the
moment.

"I am----" It stuck in my throat and wouldn't go up or down, so I
compromised--which was weak of me, as I always think on principle you'd
better lie all in all or not at all. "I suppose you don't recognize me?"
I mumbled fluffily.

"What--it's not possible that you're Ellaline Lethbridge!" the R. D.
exclaimed, in surprise, which might mean horror of my person or a
compliment.

I gasped like a fish out of water, and wriggled my neck in a silly way,
which a charitable man, unaccustomed to women, might take for schoolgirl
gawkishness in a spasm of acquiescence.

Instantly he put out his hand and wrung mine extremely hard. It would
have crunched the real Ellaline's rings into her poor little fingers.

"You must forgive me," he said. "I saw the rose"--and he smiled a
wonderfully agreeable, undragonlike smile, which put him back to
thirty-two--"but I was looking out for a very different sort
of--er--young lady."

"Why?" I asked, losing my presence of mind.

"I--well, really, I don't know why," said he.

"And I was looking for a very different sort of man," I retorted,
feeling idiotically schoolgirlish, and sillier every minute.

He smiled again then, even more nicely than before, and followed the
example I had set. "Why?" he inquired.

Unlike him, I did know why only too well. But it was difficult to
explain. Still, I had to say something or make things worse. "When in
doubt play a trump, or tell the truth," I quoted to myself as a precept;
and said out aloud that, somehow or other, I'd thought he would be old.

"So I am old," he said, "old enough to be your father." When he added
that information, he looked as if he would have liked to take it back
again, and his face coloured up with a dull, painful red, as if he'd
said something attached to a disagreeable memory. That was what his
expression suggested to me; but as I know for a fact that he has not at
all a nice, kind character, I suppose in reality what he felt was only a
stupid prick of vanity at having inadvertently given his age away. I
nearly blurted out the truth about mine, which would have got me into
hot water at once, as Ellaline's hardly nineteen and I'm practically
twenty-one--worse luck for you.

By this time the Mock Dragon had walked slowly on, but the brown image
in "native" dress had glued himself to the platform near by, too
respectful to be aware of my existence. While I was debating whether or
no the