"Oh, all the smart people do. It's one of those things one is supposed to do. There's no particular reason or sense in it; but smart people expect one another to read things like that. The newspapers get quite silly over such books. Then, after novels, I think, I shall take to having them done over for the stage? Don't you think a golfing comedy, with a sprinkling of profanity and Scotch whiskey, would be all the rage?" Jeannette Vanlief reined in her mare. She looked at Orson Vane; looked him, as much as she could, through and through. Was it all a stupid jest? She could find nothing but dense earnestness in her face, in his eyes. Oh, the riddle was too tiresome, too hopeless. It was simply not the same man at all! She gave it up, gave him up. "Do you mind," she said, "if I ride home now? I'm tired." It should have been a blow in the face, but Orson Vane never so much as noticed it. "Tired?" he repeated. "Oh; all right. We'll turn about. Rather go back alone? Oh, all right. Wish you'd learn to play golf; you really must!" And upon that he let her canter away, the groom following, some little wonder on his impassive front. As for Jeannette Vanlief she burst into her father's room a little later, and then into tears. "And I wanted to love him!" she wailed presently, from out her confusion and her distress. The Professor was patting her hair, and wondering what in all the world was the matter. At her speech, he thought he saw a light. "And why not?" he asked, soothingly, "He seems quite estimable. He was here only a moment ago?" "Who was here?" she asked in bewilderment. "Mr. Moncreith." At that she laughed. The storm was over, the sunshine peeped out again. "You dear, blind comfort, you!" she said, "What do I care if a thousand Moncreiths--" "Then it's Orson Vane," said the Professor, not so blind after all. "Well, dear, and what has he been doing now?" He listened to her rather rambling, rather spasmodic recital; listened and grew moody, though he could scarce keep away some little mirth. He saw through these masquerades, of course. Who else, if not he? Poor Jeannette! So she had set her happy little heart upon that young man? A young man who, to serve both their ends, was playing chameleon. A young man who was mining greater secrets from the deeps of the human soul than had ever been mined before. A wonderful young man, but--would that make for Jeannette's happiness? At any rate he, the Professor, would have to keep an eye open for Vane's doings. There was no knowing what strange ways these borrowed souls might lead to. He wondered who it was that, this time, had been rifled of his soul.