determining. But to label and catalogue each of these emotions
separately required privacy and leisure to think--and she also wished to
look very earnestly at the reflection of her own face in the mirror of
her own chamber. For it is a trifle exciting--though but an innocent
coincidence--to be compared, feature by feature, to a young man's ideal.
As far as that went, she excelled it, too; and, as she stood by the
desk, alone, gathering up her notes, she suddenly bent over and lifted
the hem of her gown a trifle--sufficient to reassure herself that the
dainty pair of shoes she wore, would have baffled the efforts of any
Venus ever sculptured. And she was perfectly right.

"Of course," she thought to herself, "his ideal runaway hasn't enormous
feet. He, too, must have been struck with the similarity between me and
his ideal, and when he realized that I also noticed it, he was
frightened by my frown into saying that her feet were enormous. How
silly! . . . For I didn't _mean_ to frighten him. . . . He frightened
me--once or twice--I mean he irritated me--no, interested me, is what I
_do_ mean. . . . Heigho! I wonder why she ran away? I wonder why he
can't find her? . . . It's--it's silly to run away from a man like that.
. . . Heigho! . . . She doesn't deserve to be found. There is nothing to
be afraid of--nothing to alarm anybody in a man like that."

So she gathered up her notes and walked slowly out and across to the
private office of the Tracer of Lost Persons.

"Come in," said the Tracer when she knocked. He was using the telephone;
she seated herself rather listlessly beside the window, where spring
sunshine lay in gilded patches on the rug and spring breezes stirred
the curtains. She was a little tired, but there seemed to be no good
reason why. Yet, with the soft wind blowing on her cheek, the languor