"Indeed!" his voice dropped to the 'cello-like undertone now; "isn't that a little unkind? I fancied that _we_ knew each other very well! My conceit is not to be pandered to, I perceive." "Ye-e-s--does it seem that way?" said she, ignoring the last remark. "Well, you know it was only for a few days, and you kept calling yourself by some ridiculous alias, and scarcely used your surname at all, and I believe they called you Johnny--and you can't think what a disguise such a beard is! But I remember you now perfectly. It quite brings back those short months, when I was so young--and was finding things out! I can see the vine-covered porch, and Madame Lamoreaux's boarding-house on the South Side--" "And the old art gallery?" "Why, there was one, wasn't there?" said she, "somewhere along the lake front, wasn't it?... Such a pleasant meeting, and so odd!" I sat up in the hammock, and stared at them as they went on their promenade. The old art gallery, the vine-covered porch, the young man with the smooth-shaven dark face and the thrilling, vibrant voice, and the young, young girl with the ruddy hair, and the little, round form! She seemed taller now, and there was more of maturity in the figure; but it was the same lissome waist and petite gracefulness which had so fully explained to me the avid eyes of her lover on that day when I had fled from the report of the Committee on Permanent Organization. It was the Empress Josephine, I had known that--and her Sir John! Then I thought of her flying from him into the street, and the little bowed head on the street-car; and the old pity for her, the old bitterness toward him, returned upon me. I wondered how he could speak to her in this nonchalant way; what they were saying to each other; whether they would ever refer to that night at Auriccio's; what Alice would think of him if she ever found it out; whether he was a villain, or only erred passionately; what was actually said in that palm alcove that night so long ago; whether this man, with the eyes and voice so fascinating to women, would renew his suit in this new life of ours; what Jim would think about it; and, more than all, how Josie herself would regard him. "She ought never to have spoken to him again!" I hear some one say. Ah, Madam, very true. But do you remember any authentic case of a woman who failed to forgive the man whose error or offense had for its excuse the irresistible attraction of her own charms? They were coming back now, still talking. "You dropped out of sight, like a partridge into a thicket," said he. "Some of them said you had gone back to--to--" "To the farm," she prompted. "Well, yes," he conceded; "and others said you had left Chicago for New York; and some, even Paris." "I fail to see the warrant," said Josie, as they approached the limit of earshot, "for any of the people at Madame Lamoreux's giving themselves the trouble to investigate."