"If a fellow has had much experience of his fellow-man he may divide him into types, and given a certain number of men and a certain number of circumstances, he is pretty safe on hitting on the line of action each type will strike. 'Taint so with woman. You may always look out for the unexpected; she generally upsets a fellow's calculations, and you are never safe in laying odds on her. Tell you what, old chappie, we may talk about superior intellect; but if a woman wasn't handicapped by her affection or need of it, the cleverest chap in Christendom would be just a bit of putty in her hands. I find them more fascinating as problems than anything going. Never let an opportunity slip to get new data--never!" He did not now. He met the frank, unembarrassed gaze of eyes that would have looked with just the same bright inquiry at the advent of a hare or a toad, or any other object that might cross her path, and raised his hat with respectful courtesy, saying, in the drawling tone habitual with him,-- "I hope I am not trespassing?" "I can't say; you may be; so may I, but no one has ever told me so!" A pause. His quick glance has noted the thick wedding-ring on her slim brown hand and the flash of a diamond in its keeper. A lady decidedly. Fast?--perhaps. Original?--undoubtedly. Worth knowing?--rather. "I am looking for a trout stream, but the directions I got were rather vague; might I--" "It's straight ahead; but you won't catch anything now, at least not here,--sun's too glaring and water too low; a mile up you may in an hour's time." "Oh, thanks awfully for the tip. You fish then?" "Yes, sometimes." "Trout run big here?" (What odd eyes the woman has! kind of magnetic.) "No, seldom over a pound; but they are very game." "Rare good sport, isn't it, whipping a stream? There is so much besides the mere catching of fish; the river and the trees and the quiet sets a fellow thinking; kind of sermon; makes a chap feel good, don't it?" She smiles assentingly, and yet what the devil is she amused at, he queries mentally. An inspiration! he acts upon it, and says eagerly,-- "I wonder--I don't half like to ask, but fishing puts people on a common footing, don't it? You knowing the stream, you know, would you tell me what are the best flies to use?" "I tie my own, but--" "Do you? How clever of you! Wish I could;" and sitting down on the other end of the tree, he takes out his fly-book. "But I interrupted you, you were going to say--" "Only,"--stretching out her hand, of a perfect shape but decidedly brown, for the book,--"that you might give the local fly-tyer a trial; he'll tell you. Later on, end of next month, or perhaps later, you might try the oak-fly,--the natural fly, you know. A horn is the best thing to hold them in, they get out of anything else; and put two on at a time." "By Jove, I must try that dodge!"