"Please," he pleaded, "please don't go. I have found the book. I really have. But you must take my word for it. You mustn't open it till you are at home." He handed it to the clerk to be wrapped up. "And now," he went on, "won't you tell me something? I--upon my honor, I can't think where we met?" "One hardly expects Mr. Orson Vane to remember all the young women in society," she smiled. "Besides, if I must confess: I am only just what society calls 'out.' I have seen Mr. Orson Vane: but he has not seen me. Mr. Vane is a leader; I am--" She shrugged her shoulder, raised her eyebrows, pursed up her mouth, oh, to a complete gesture that was the prettiest, most bewildering finish to any sentence ever uttered. "Oh," said Orson, "but you are mistaken. I have seen you. No longer ago than last night. In--" "In a mirror," she laughed. Then she grew suddenly quite solemn. "Oh, you mustn't think I didn't know who you were. It was all very rash of me, and very improper, my speaking to you, just now, but--" "It was very sweet," he interposed. "But," she went on, not heeding his remark at all, "I knew you so well by sight, and I had really been introduced to you once,--one of a bevy of debutantes, merely an item in a chorus--and, besides, my father--" "Your father?" repeated Orson, jogging his memory, "you don't mean to say--" "My father is Augustus Vanlief," she said. He took a little time to digest the news. The clerk handed him the book and the change. He saw, now, whence that charm, that grace, that beauty came; he recalled that the late Mrs. Vanlief had been one of the Waddells; there was no better blood in the country. With the name, too, there came the thought of the wonderful revelations that were presently to come to him, thanks to this girl's father. A sort of dizziness touched him: he felt a quick conflict between the wish to worship this girl, and the wish to probe deeper into life. It was with a very real effort that he brushed the charm of her from him, and relapsed, again, into the man who meant to know more of human life than had ever been known before. He took out a silver pencil and held it poised above the book. "This book," he said, "is for you, you know, not for your father. Your father and I are to be great friends but--I want to be friends, also, with--" he looked a smiling appeal, "with--whom?" "With Miss Vanlief," she replied, mockingly. "My other name? I hate it; really I do. Perhaps my father will tell you."