She was looking wearily past him, her gaze probing some unguessed abyss of
thought. Kirkwood felt himself privileged to stare in wonder. Her naive
aloofness of poise gripped his imagination powerfully,--the more
so, perhaps, since it seemed eloquent of her intention to remain
enigmatic,--but by no means more powerfully than the unaided appeal of her
loveliness.

Presently the girl herself relieved the tension of the situation, fairly
startling the young man by going straight to the heart of things. Without
preface or warning, lifting her gaze to his, "My name is really Dorothy
Calendar," she observed. And then, noting his astonishment, "You would be
privileged to doubt, under the circumstances," she added. "Please let us be
frank."

"Well," he stammered, "if I didn't doubt, let's say I was unprejudiced."

His awkward, well-meant pleasantry, perhaps not conceived in the best of
taste, sounded in his own ears wretchedly flat and vapid. He regretted it
spontaneously; the girl ignored it.

"You are very kind," she iterated the first words he had heard from her
lips. "I wish you to understand that I, for one, appreciate it."

"Not kind; I have done nothing. I am glad.... One is apt to become
interested when Romance is injected into a prosaic existence." Kirkwood
allowed himself a keen but cheerful glance.

She nodded, with a shadowy smile. He continued, purposefully, to distract
her, holding her with his honest, friendly eyes.