The open door had partially screened me from the newcomers. But Colton,
red and wrathful, had not ceased to glare in my direction and she,
following his gaze, saw me. She did not recognize me, I think--probably
I had not made sufficient impression upon her mind even for casual
remembrance--but I recognized her. She was the girl with the dark eyes,
whose look of contemptuous indifference had so withered my self-esteem.
And her companion was the young chap who, from the tonneau of the
automobile that morning, had inquired the way to Bayport.

The young man turned lazily. "Are we?" he said. "I--What! Why, Mabel,
it's the humorist!"

Then she recognized me. I could feel the blood climbing from my toes
to the roots of my hair. I was too astonished and chagrined to speak or
even move, though I wanted to move very much indeed. She looked at me
and I at her. Then she turned coldly away.

"Come, Victor," she said.

But Victor was his own blase self. It took more than a trifle to shake
his calm. He laughed.

"It's the humorist," he repeated. "Reuben, how are you?"

Colton regarded the three of us with amazement.

"What?" he began. "Mabel, do you--"

But I had recovered my powers of locomotion. I was on my way out of that
library.