fame?"

Under the searching gaze of those green-gray eyes, the young man flushed.
"Yes; my father was active in New England politics," he answered simply.
"Did you know him?"

"Very well"--returned the other--"very well." He repeated the two words
with a suggestive emphasis; his eyes--with that curious, baffling,
questioning look--still fixed upon his companion's face.

The red in Aaron King's cheeks deepened.

Looking away, the strange man added, with a softer note in his rough
voice, "I thought I knew you, when I saw you at the depot. Your mother and
I were boy and girl together. There is a little of her face in yours. If
you have as much of her character, you are to be congratulated--and--so
are the rest of us." The last words were spoken, apparently, to the dog;
who, still looking up at him, seemed to express with slow-waving tail, an
understanding of thoughts that were only partly put into words.

There was an impersonality in the man's personalities that made it
impossible for the subject of his observations to take offense.

Aaron King--when it was evident that the man had no thought of
introducing himself--said, with the fine courtesy that seemed always to
find expression in his voice and manner, "May I ask your name, sir?"

The other, without turning his eyes from the dog, answered, "Conrad
Lagrange."