Mr. Skinner found his hat, smiled dubiously at his daughter, and without further parley took himself off. Adele, left alone, looked at the watch in her girdle, and compared its record with that of the ornate clock on the mantel. She took up the paper and ran an aimless eye over one page after another. Then she walked about with a restless movement, pausing from time to time to bend a frowning yet indifferent inspection upon the scene spread out beyond the balcony. At last there came a tap on the door, and at sound of this, even as she called out a clear, commanding “Come!” she withdrew all signs of perturbation, or of emotion of any sort, from her beautiful dark countenance. It was Vestalia who entered the room--Vestalia, clad in daintily unpretentious and becoming garments, neatly gloved, and with much radiant self-possession upon her pretty face. She paused upon the threshold, nodded rather than bowed to her hostess, and let a little smile sparkle in her eyes and play about her rosebud of a mouth. “Your father does not succeed very well in keeping his secrets, I observe,” she remarked, pleasantly, by way of an overture to conversation. “Won’t you please to be seated,” said Adele, with exaggerated calmness. She herself took a chair, and slowly surveyed her visitor as she went on: “My father has no secrets from me. He tries to have--once in a blue moon--but it doesn’t come off. I may tell you frankly, however, that he has in this case told me nothing. I found your address, and other information, in looking through his pockets. I am under no obligation to tell you this: I simply feel like it, that’s all. I hate dissimulation.” “And I suppose you have your things made up without pockets,” suggested Vestalia, amiably. Adele put some added resolution into her glance. “I wrote asking you to call,” she said coldly, “because it became a nuisance not to know what you were up to.” “Ah,” replied Vestalia, “it looks as if your father must have destroyed some of our correspondence. How thoughtless of him!” Miss Skinner paused, and knitted her queenly brows a trifle. She did not seem to be getting on. “I have no wish to waste time in trying to be funny,” she avowed, after some hesitation. “Now that you are here, have you any objection to telling me why you swore my father to keep a secret from me?” “Oh, just a whim of mine, nothing more,” Vestalia assured her, lightly. “I frequently have notions like that, that I can’t in the least account for.” “No, you had a reason,” insisted the other, with gravity. “And you must tell me what it was. I have been frank with you.” “And I will not be behind you in candour,” said Vestalia, as if won by an appeal to her better self. “It was because you looked at me in the Museum as if you thought my hair was dyed.” “Well, so it is, isn’t it?” demanded Adele, bluntly.