face, looking out of the picture into the world kindly and
questioningly, and without fear.

``Was I once like that?'' she said, lightly. ``Well, go on.''

``Well,'' he said, with a little sigh of relief, ``I became
greatly interested in Miss Alice Langham, and in her comings out
and goings in, and in her gowns. Thanks to our having a press in
the States that makes a specialty of personalities, I was able to
follow you pretty closely, for, wherever I go, I have my papers
sent after me. I can get along without a compass or a medicine-
chest, but I can't do without the newspapers and the magazines.
There was a time when I thought you were going to marry that
Austrian chap, and I didn't approve of that. I knew things about
him in Vienna. And then I read of your engagement to
others--well--several others; some of them I thought worthy, and
others not. Once I even thought of writing you about it, and
once I saw you in Paris. You were passing on a coach. The man
with me told me it was you, and I wanted to follow the coach in a
fiacre, but he said he knew at what hotel you were stopping, and
so I let you go, but you were not at that hotel, or at any
other--at least, I couldn't find you.''

``What would you have done--?'' asked Miss Langham. ``Never
mind,'' she interrupted, ``go on.''

``Well, that's all,'' said Clay, smiling. ``That's all, at
least, that concerns you. That is the romance of this poor young
man.''