"Why--mayn't I call you by your name?"

"My name," said Varney, "in fairly legible print, is on the card which
you hold in your hand."

She raised her eyes and looked at him, perplexed, hesitating, a little
mortified, like one who has encountered an unlooked-for rebuff. "Forgive
me," she ventured rather shyly, "but do you think it would be possible
for you to--to keep an incog here--where you must have so many friends?
If you want to do that--to try it--of course I'll not tell a soul. But
I'd like it very much if you could trust--_me_, who have known you
through your books for so long."

"I should be quite willing to trust you, Miss Carstairs, but there is
nothing to trust you about. I am not incog. I am not the author. I have
written no books whatever--"

"Ah! Then good-bye," she said with a swift change of manner, starting at
once for the door. "I shall not trouble you to walk home with me. Thank
you again for giving me shelter and light during the storm."

"Will you be good enough to wait one minute?"

She paused with one gloved hand on the knob, cool, resolute, a little
angry, the blue battery of her eyes fixing him across her white
embroidered shoulder. But he had turned away, hands thrust deep into the
pockets of his coat, brow rumpled into a frown, jaw set to anathema of
the plight in which a needless fortune had plunged him.