picking my way to a table among the ferns when I felt my sleeve caught.
“Mr. Bellford!” exclaimed an amazingly sweet voice.
I turned quickly to see a lady seated alone—a lady of about thirty, with exceedingly handsome eyes, who looked at me as though I had been her very dear friend.
“You were about to pass me,” she said, accusingly. “Don’t tell me you did not know me. Why should we not shake hands—at least once in fifteen years?”
I shook hands with her at once. I took a chair opposite her at the table. I summoned with my eyebrows a hovering waiter. The lady was philandering with an orange ice. I ordered a crème de menthe. Her hair was reddish bronze. You could not look at it, because you could not look away from her eyes. But you were conscious of it as you are conscious of sunset while you look into the profundities of a wood at twilight.
“Are you sure you know me?” I asked.
“No,” she said, smiling, “I was never sure of that.”
“What would you think,” I said, a little anxiously, “if I were to tell you that my name is Edward Pinkhammer, from Cornopolis, Kansas?”
“What would I think?” she repeated, with a merry glance. “Why, that you had not brought Mrs. Bellford to New York with you, of course. I do wish you had. I would have liked to see Marian.” Her voice
