The girl did not reappear. Signs of animation along the main road were limited. One or two men went by, then a group of children obviously on their way to school. Albert yawned again, took the silver cigarette case from his pocket and looked longingly at its contents. He wondered what his grandfather's ideas might be on the tobacco question. But his grandfather was not there then . . . and he might not return for some time . . . and . . . He took a cigarette from the case, tapped, with careful carelessness, its end upon the case--he would not have dreamed of smoking without first going through the tapping process--lighted the cigarette and blew a large and satisfying cloud. Between puffs he sang: “To you, beautiful lady, I raise my eyes. My heart, beautiful lady, To your heart cries: Come, come, beautiful lady, To Par-a-dise, As the sweet, sweet--'” Some one behind him said: “Excuse me.” The appeal to the beautiful lady broke off in the middle, and he whirled about to find the girl whom he had seen across the road and for whose reappearance he had been watching at the window, standing in the office doorway. He looked at her and she looked at him. He was embarrassed. She did not seem to be. “Excuse me,” she said: “Is Mr. Keeler here?” She was a pretty girl, so his hasty estimate made when he had first sighted her was correct. Her hair was dark, so were her eyes, and her cheeks were becomingly colored by the chill of the winter air. She was a country girl, her hat and coat proved that; not that they were in bad taste or unbecoming, but they were simple and their style perhaps nearer to that which the young ladies of the Misses Bradshaws' seminary had worn the previous winter. All this Albert noticed in detail later on. Just then the particular point which attracted his embarrassed attention was the look in the dark eyes. They seemed to have almost the same disturbing quality which he had noticed in his grandfather's gray ones. Her mouth was very proper and grave, but her eyes looked as if she were laughing at him. Now to be laughed at by an attractive young lady is disturbing and unpleasant. It is particularly so when the laughter is from the provinces and the laughee--so to speak--a dignified and sophisticated city man. Albert summoned the said dignity and sophistication to his rescue, knocked the ashes from his cigarette and said, haughtily: “I beg your pardon?” “Is Mr. Keeler here?” repeated the girl. “No, he is out.” “Will he be back soon, do you think?” Recollections of Mr. Price's recent remark concerning the missing bookkeeper's “good start” came to Albert's mind and he smiled, slightly. “I should say not,” he observed, with delicate irony. “Is Issy--I mean Mr. Price, busy?” “He's out in the yard there somewhere, I believe. Would you like to have me call him?” “Why, yes--if you please--sir.”