Still her rosy lips withheld the answer. “Not,” she murmured to her inmost self, “until I know whether there’s an electric cart and a trip to Europe coming along with the big diamond and the sealskins.” But Bill, stupid after the manner of men, was sorely tried by her evasiveness. He was not a Mind Reader. He just made plain Love, without the modern conveniences. Then came the gasoline man, and it was dark before they started. As both were very hungry, nothing more was said. Bill Vanderhook looked like a blue print, when he handed her out to Mrs. Astor. He felt he had lost his opportunity. He feared he had lost the girl. It was at this critical stage of Cupid’s campaign that our story opens. It was during this momentous interlude that the over-anxious Bill had dragged the reluctant Alonzo, the unwilling Mystic, from his professional seclusion and led him, unprepared, into temptation. Unconfessed to himself, Bill had a considerable faith in Alonzo’s occult powers. He meant to induce the Guru to aid his suit with the tantalizing Typewriter. Having finally decided to break his vow, Mr. Leffingwell went out of the drug store, sustained by the lowball and a shadowy hope that he would not be found out. He realized his departure from the fifty-seven Paths, but he did not dream that as yet he had come up to his Karmic Destiny. He did not suspect that he and Bill were strolling down Asylum Avenue, arm in arm, for the last time. A little later Alonzo is seated with Bill in Mrs. Astor’s parlor, on the very davenport where Bill had first seen HER. Silently they awaited the appearance of the maiden of whom Bill talked all day, whom he visited every evening, and of whom he dreamed all night. The face of the Mystic was set and stern. His body was erect and rigid. His gaze was abstracted, cold and indifferent. To his innermost Inner he was steeled against Woman. Presently there was a swish and a swirl of nearby silk and heatherbloom, a faint but intoxicating odor of patchouli, and then--and then--a face, a bewildering flash of the rose and the lily, a sunburst of radiant loveliness. The up-to-date maiden and the up-to-date Mystic stood face to face. On that instant the tragic entanglement of Mysticism and Materialism, which had been recorded in the stars, now took on its initial expression. The effect upon the Occultist was instantaneous and overpowering. On the instant his face, form and expression lost their hauteur, rigidity and disdain. Rising, but unheeding the formal introduction by his proud and awkward chum, Alonzo Leffingwell paled, trembled and swayed. For one unutterable moment he gazed upon that dazzling vision with rapt ecstasy, and then raising his delicate white hand and pointing at random in the air, he shrieked in a loud voice, “Aha!--Ah-ha! ’tis SHE! ’Tis SHE!--MISS SHEETS IS SHE!” and fell in convulsions at the feet of the lovely stranger. Then Miss Sheets shrieked like it was a mouse, and Bill growled his astonishment.