It don't strike me as quite fair, does it you ?" Rushbrook was pleased.

Without the vanity that would be either annoyed at this revelation of his reputation, or gratified at her defense of it, he was simply glad to discover that she had not recognized him as her host, and could continue the conversation unreservedly.

"Have you seen the ladies' boudoir ?" he asked.

"You know, the room fitted with knick-knacks and pretty things--some of 'em bought from old collections in Europe, by fellows who knew what they were but perhaps," he added, looking into her eyes for the first time, "didn't know exactly what ladies cared for." "I merely glanced in there when I first came, for there was such a queer lot of women--I'm told he isn't very particular in that way--that I didn't stay." "And you didn't think THEY might be just as valuable and good as some of the furniture, if they could have been pulled around and put into shape, or set in a corner, eh ?" The young girl smiled; she thought her fellow-guest rather amusing, none the less so, perhaps, for catching up her own ideas, but nevertheless she slightly shrugged her shoulders with that hopeless skepticism which women reserve for their own sex.

"Some of them looked as if they had been pulled around, as you say, and hadn't been improved by it." "There's no one there now," said Rushbrook, with practical directness; "come and take a look at it." She complied without hesitation, walking by his side, tall, easy, and self-possessed, apparently accepting without self-consciousness his half paternal, half comrade-like informality.