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did so gratefully. She took his arm, and they disappeared from the sight of those within the room.

Unquestionably some sense of bafflement remained behind. "Now, why on earth," Albert Jones inquired, "would such a woman do a thing like that?"

"It's simple enough to me," Macklyn said. "You wonder how she can let the creature address a syllable to her, and not freeze him so solid he'd never be able even to look at her again. I suppose that's what you're wondering, both of you, isn't it?"

"I do," Ogle admitted. "I do indeed. I thought—— I thought——"

"Yes; one knows what you thought," Macklyn interrupted a little crisply. "But I'm afraid Madame Momoro has seen quite a number of men like you, Mr. Ogle, and like Albert and me quite as well. But this Iroquois from the prairies is a new type to her, and she's interested in specimens. We're of her own class; she intuitively knows us too well to be interested in us when there's an unknown specimen at hand. I don't think we need to feel mortified because she prefers half an hour or so of microscopic work, tête-à-tête, to a general conversation—especially as Albert and I didn't even offer her a sample of our own and never opened our heads. She had no