come West incognito partly through the conceit which he admitted and
gloried in, and partly because he believed his prominence sufficient to
obtain for him an unpleasant notoriety if he continued long enough to
track the same young lady about the country. Hence he had taken the
trouble to advertise a trip abroad to account for his absence.
Undoubtedly his previous conquests had been made more easily, for my
second talk with Miss Thorn had put my mind at rest as to her having
fallen a victim to his fascinations. Her arrival at Mohair being
delayed, the Celebrity had come nearly a month too soon, and in the
interval that tendency of which he was the dupe still led him by the
nose; he must needs make violent love to the most attractive girl on the
ground,--Miss Trevor. Now that one still more attractive had arrived
I was curious to see how he would steer between the two, for I made no
doubt that matters had progressed rather far with Miss Trevor. And in
this I was not mistaken.

But his choice of the name of Charles Wrexell Allen bothered me
considerably. I finally decided that he had taken it because convenient,
and because he believed Asquith to be more remote from the East than the
Sandwich Islands.

Reaching the inn grounds, I climbed the hillside to a favorite haunt of
mine, a huge boulder having a sloping back covered with soft turf. Hence
I could watch indifferently both lake and sky. Presently, however, I was
aroused by voices at the foot of the rock, and peering over the edge I
discovered a kind of sewing-circle gathered there. The foliage hid me
completely. I perceived the Celebrity perched upon the low branch of an
apple-tree, and Miss Trevor below him, with two other girls, doing
fancy-work. I shall not attempt to defend the morality of my action, but
I could not get away without discovery, and the knowledge that I had