He found Nellie occupied with some flowers which had just come for her in the long pink pasteboard box of a New York florist. She was clipping the stems and arranging them in a tall vase. “Oh, Bob,” she said, without turning from her occupation, and the charm of her pose contrasted oddly with her tone, “I wanted to warn you not to trouble your father with this idea of your being some one else. It would probably destroy his returning faith in you, and I don’t think he would even get the amusement from it that I did.” “Ah, he has not such a sense of humor as that merry fellow Emmons. You did not tell me it was he whom my absence has kept you from for a year. No wonder you resented it!” “I always think,” Nellie observed with the utmost detachment, “that a person who is not very strong in morals ought to have particularly good taste to make up. I don’t think your last remark was conspicuous for either.” “My dear Nellie,” said Vickers, “if I had promised to marry Emmons, I should never hear the word taste again without a blush.” “We won’t discuss Mr. Emmons.” “Discuss my revered employer with an outsider? I should think not,” returned Vickers. “At least he _is_ your employer, which not many men who knew your record would care to be.” “Ah, but Emmons doesn’t know _my_ record.” “Really, Bob, you are tiresome,” said Nellie. “Do I show so much evidence of believing you that you are encouraged to persist in your absurd story? There is a proverb about sticking to a good lie, but no one could advise you to stick to such a particularly stupid one as this.” “Facts are stubborn things, however,” said Vickers. “Lee, if you care to know, died just ten days ago. I saw him dead. He died of drink. Doesn’t that sound likely?” “Very likely, if I did not see you before me at the moment.” “Don’t be absurd,” he answered, coming nearer to her. “I knew Lee. We were not even so very much alike. He was not as tall as I am, for one thing. Look at me.” “I can’t. I’m busy.” “By George, you will, too,” he cried, taking her by the shoulders. “You did not have to look up as much as that to Lee. He was not built like me--not so well. He was older, too, and had led the devil of a life, and showed it. Can’t you see, you stupid girl? Look at me;” and he gave her a faint shake. She was not in the least flustered, angered, or in any way upset by his violence, apparently. She simply would not look at him. Her eyes roved up and down and sideways, but would not meet his, and in the course of their wanderings they encountered the figure of Mr. Lee, just entering. “Isn’t dinner ready yet, Nellie?” he asked peevishly. “Not yet, Uncle,” said Nellie, coolly escaping from Vickers’s grasp. “Sit down here. Bob was just asking me if I did not think him very much altered in twelve years.” The old man looked at Vickers affectionately. “Why, no,” he said, “I don’t think he has changed as much as I should expect.” “Why, sir, you did not know me at first last night.”