"It was only this morning that I was reading in the newspaper all sorts
of nice things about you. It made me feel like going out and telling
everybody you were an old friend of mine." Still holding his fingers, she
pushed him away from her at arm's length, and looked at him. "What does
it feel like to be famous, and have editorials about one's self in the
New York newspapers?"

He laughed, and released his hands somewhat abruptly.

"It seems as strange to me, Honora, as it does to you."

"How unkind of you, Peter!" she exclaimed.

She felt his eyes upon her, and their searching, yet kindly and humorous
rays seemed to illuminate chambers within her which she would have kept
in darkness: which she herself did not wish to examine.

"I'm so glad to see you," she said a little breathlessly, flinging her
muff and boa on a chair. "Sit there, where I can look at you, and tell me
why you didn't let me know you were coming to New York."

He glanced a little comically at the gilt and silk arm-chair which she
designated, and then at her; and she smiled and coloured, divining the
humour in his unspoken phrase.

"For a great man," she declared, "you are absurd."

He sat down. In spite of his black clothes and the lounging attitude he
habitually assumed, with his knees crossed--he did not appear incongruous
in a seat that would have harmonized with the flowing robes of the