As they strolled back uptown through the long street, with its arching maples, they seemed altogether like the oldest of friends. Pendleton did not appear to mind at all, if he were conscious of the fact, that Susie’s hat was not one of the new fall models, or that her coat was not in the least smart. The strain was over and he submitted himself in high good humor to the Susiness of Susie. It was when they were passing the Public Library that a mood of remorse seized her. There was, she reflected, such a thing as carrying a joke too far. She salved her conscience with the reflection that if she had not yielded to the temptations of her own Susiness and accepted Mr. Burgess’s invitation she would not have been able to point this big, earnest student to the particular alcove and shelf where reposed the one copy in all the world of the only document that would rout the critics of the Brickyards of Nebuchadnezzar. “That Geisendanner,” said Susie, rather more soberly than he had yet heard her speak, “was, beyond doubt, an awful liar and a great fraud; but I am a much greater.” “You!” exclaimed Pendleton, leaning for a moment on his stick and staring at her. “Even so! In the first place, I went to Mrs. Burgess’s house for dinner last night through a mistake; she had never seen or heard of me before, and Mr. Burgess asked me merely because he had exhausted the other possibilities and was desperate for some one to fill a chink at his wife’s table. And the worst thing I did was to make you think I knew all about Newport, when I was never there in my life--and never saw any of the people I mentioned. Everything I said I got out of the newspapers. It was all just acting, and I put it on a little more because I saw that Mrs. Burgess and her sister didn’t like me; they didn’t think it was a joke at all, my trying to be Susie again--just once more in my life before I settled back to being called Miss Susan forever. And the way I come to be living in that fine house is simply that I’m borrowed from the library for so much a week to catalogue the Logans’ library and push a paperknife through the books. Now you see that Geisendanner isn’t in it with me for downright wickedness and most s-h-o-c-k-i-n-g m-e-n-d-a-c-i-t-y!” “But if you hadn’t done all those terrible things where should I be?” demanded Pendleton. “But, before dismissing your confession, would you mind telling me just how you came to know--well, anything about me?” “I’m almost afraid to go that far,” laughed Susie, who, as a matter of fact, did not fear this big, good-natured man at all. “Tell me that,” encouraged Pendleton, “and we will consider the confession closed.”