"You don't. But--what?" He bent his dark head.

"I said, 'But I don't know how you knew it'!" Nina repeated,
looking down in her overwhelming self-consciousness, but with a
smile of utter happiness and excitement.

A second later she looked up in some alarm. He was silent--she had
somehow said the awkward thing again I Nina's heart fluttered
nervously.

But what she saw reassured her. Royal Blondin had squared himself
about, and had folded his arms, and was staring darkly into space.

"How I knew it!" he said in a half-whisper, as if to himself,
after a full half-minute of silence that thrilled Nina to the
soul. "Child, I don't know! Some day you and I will read books
together--wonderful books! And then perhaps we will begin to
understand the cosmic secret--why your soul reaches out to mine--
why I not only want to know you better, but why it is my solemn
obligation to take the exquisite thing your coming into my life
may mean to us both! You're only a child," he went on, in a
lighter tone, "and I can read those big eyes of yours, and can see
that I'm frightening you! Well, this much remains. You and I have
somehow found each other in all this wilderness of lies and
affectations, and we're going to be friends, aren't we?"

"I--hope we are!" Nina said, clearing her throat, with a bashful
laugh.

"You know we are!" Royal Blondin amended. And in a musing tone he