Queed said that he would, and Byrd hurried away to overtake Mr. Miller. Or, perhaps that gentleman was only a pretext, and the young man's experienced eye had read that any attempt to outsit the learned assistant editor was foredoomed to failure. "I'm so glad you stayed," said Sharlee, as Queed reseated himself. "I shouldn't have liked not to exchange a word with you on your first visit here." "Oh! This is not my first visit, you may remember." "Your first voluntary visit, perhaps I should have said." He let his eyes run over the room, and she could see that he was thinking, half-unconsciously, of the last time when he and she had sat here. "I had no idea of going," he said absently, "till I had the opportunity of speaking to you." A brief silence followed, which clearly did not embarrass him, at any rate. Sharlee, feeling the necessity of breaking it, still puzzling herself with speculations as to what had put it into his head to come, said at random:-- "Oh, do tell me--how is old Père Goriot?" "Père Goriot? I never heard of him." "Oh, forgive me! It is a name we used to have, long ago, for Professor Nicolovius." A shadow crossed his brow. "He is extremely well, I believe." "You are still glad that you ran off with him to live _tête-à-tête_ in a bridal cottage?" "Oh, I suppose so. Yes, certainly!" His frank face betrayed that the topic was unwelcome to him. For he hated all secrets, and this secret, from this girl, was particularly obnoxious to him. And beyond all that part of it, how could he analyze for anybody his periods of strong revolt against his association with Henry G. Surface, followed by longer and stranger periods when, quite apart from the fact that his word was given and regrets were vain, his consciousness embraced it as having a certain positive value? He rose restlessly, and in rising his eye fell upon the little clock on the mantel. "Good heavens!" broke from him. "I had no idea it was so late! I must go directly. Directly." "Oh, no, you mustn't think of it. Your visit to me has just begun--all this time you have been calling on Beverley Byrd." "Why do you think I came here to-night?" he asked abruptly. Sharlee, from her large chair, smiled. "_I_ think to see me." "Oh!--Yes, naturally, but--" "Well, I think this is the call plainly due me from my Reunion party last year." "No! Not at all! At the same time, it has been since that day that I have had you on my mind so much." He said this in a perfectly matter-of-fact voice, but a certain nervousness had broken through into his manner. He took a turn up and down the room, and returned suddenly to his seat. "Oh, have you had me on your mind?" "Do you remember my saying that day," he began, resolutely, "that I was not sure whether I had got the better of you or you had got the better of me?" "I remember very well." "Well, I have come to tell you that--you have won."