“Discovered,” murmured Average Jones. “I shouldn’t have vaunted my poor French. But must I really take my little friends all the way back? You suggested to the mystic voice within that I might be invited inside.” “You seem a decidedly unconventional person,” began the other with dawning disfavor. “Conventionality, like charity, begins at home,” he replied quickly. “And one would hardly call this advertisement a pattern of formal etiquette.” “True enough,” she admitted, dimpling, and Average Jones was congratulating himself on his diplomacy, when the querulous voice broke in again, this time too low for his ears. “I don’t ask you the real reason for your extraordinary call,” pursued the girl with a glint of mischief in her eyes, after she had responded in an aside, “but auntie thinks you’ve come to steal my dog. She thinks that of every one lately.” “Auntie? Your dog? Then you’re Sylvia Graham. I might have known it.” “I don’t know how you might have known it. But I am Sylvia Graham—if you insist on introducing me to yourself.” “Miss Graham,” said the visitor promptly and gravely, “let me present A.V.R.E. Jones: a friend—” “Not the famous Average Jones!” cried the girl. “That is why your face seemed so familiar. I’ve seen your picture at Edna Hale’s. You got her ‘blue fires’ back for her. But really, that hardly explains your being here, in this way, you know.” “Frankly, Miss Graham, it was just as a lark that I answered the advertisement. But now that I’m here and find you here, it looks—er—as if it might—er—be more serious.” A tinge of pink came into the girl’s cheeks, but she answered lightly enough: “Indeed, it may, for you, if uncle finds you here with those beetles.” “Never mind me or the beetles. I’d like to know about the dog that your aunt is worrying over. Is he here with you?” The soft curve of Miss Graham’s lips straightened a little. “I really think,” she said with decision, “that you had better explain further before questioning.” “Nothing simpler. Once upon a time there lived a crack-brained young Don Quixote who wandered through an age of buried romance piously searching for trouble. And, twice upon a time, there dwelt in an enchanted stone castle in West Sixteenth Street an enchanting young damsel in distress—” “I’m not a damsel in distress,” interrupted Miss Graham, passing over the adjective. The young man leaned to her. The half smile had passed from his lips, and his eyes were very grave. “Not—er—if your dog were to—er—disappear?” he drawled quietly. The swift unexpectedness of the counter broke down the girl’s guard. “You mean Uncle Hawley,” she said. “And your suspicions jump with mine.” “They don’t!” she denied hotly. “You’re very unjust and impertinent.” “I don’t mean to be impertinent,” he said evenly. “And I have no monopoly of injustice.” “What do you know about Uncle Hawley?” “Your aunt—” “I won’t hear a word against my aunt.”