``If we are to continue good friends, Mr. Clay,'' said Miss
Langham, in decisive tones, ``we must keep our relationship on
more of a social and less of a personal basis. It was all very
well that first night I met you,'' she went on, in a kindly tone.

``You rushed in then and by a sort of tour de force made me
think a great deal about myself and also about you. Your stories
of cherished photographs and distant devotion and all that were
very interesting; but now we are to be together a great deal, and
if we are to talk about ourselves all the time, I for one shall
grow very tired of it. As a matter of fact you don't know what
your feelings are concerning me, and until you do we will talk
less about them and more about the things you are certain of.
When are you going to take us to the mines, for instance, and who
was Anduella, the Liberator of Olancho, on that pedestal
over there? Now, isn't that much more instructive?''

Clay smiled grimly and made no answer, but sat with knitted brows
looking out across the trees of the plaza. His face was so
serious and he was apparently giving such earnest consideration
to what she had said that Miss Langham felt an uneasy sense of
remorse. And, moreover, the young man's profile, as he sat
looking away from her, was very fine, and the head on his broad
shoulders was as well-modelled as the head of an Athenian statue.

Miss Langham was not insensible to beauty of any sort, and she
regarded the profile with perplexity and with a softening spirit.

``You understand,'' she said, gently, being quite certain that
she did not understand this new order of young man herself.