at a disadvantage, even if only for a few minutes."

"I wish you wouldn't," he begged in boyish embarrassment. "I'm not a
notability, really; Quain's been talking too much. I'll get even with
him, though."

"That sounds so modest that I almost believe I've made a mistake about
your identity. But I've no doubt you're right; Mr. Quain does
exaggerate in praise of his friends. Very likely it is as you insist,
and you're only an ordinary person, after all. At least, you would be
if stray babus didn't make you mysterious presents."

"So long as there is that to hold your interest in me, I'm content," he
told her, diverted. "How much longer shall you stay at Tanglewood, Miss
Farrell?"

"Unhappily," she sighed, "I must leave on the early train to-morrow, to
join the Rolands in New York."

"You don't want to go?"

"I'm half an American, Mr. Amber. I've learned to love the country
already. Besides, we start immediately for San Francisco, and it'll be
such a little while before I'll be in India."

"You don't care for India?"

"I've known it for less than six years, but already I've come to hate
it as thoroughly as any exiled Englishwoman there. It sits there like a
great, insatiable monster, devouring English lives. Indirectly it was