"You told me once that a woman was adorable in the exact degree in which she could afford to be visibly transparent; yes, you said 'afford,' and I've been holding it against you. Now I'm going to pay you back. You are the transparent one, this time. You have as good as admitted that the 'happening' thing isn't a man; 'wha-what' always means that, you know; so it must be a woman. Is it the Miss Richlander you were telling me about?" There are times when any mere man may be shocked into telling the simple truth, and Smith had come face to face with one of them. "It is," he said. "She is in Brewster?" "Yes." "When did she come?" "This evening." "And you ran away? That was horribly unkind, don't you think--after she had come so far?" "Hold on," he broke in. "Don't let's go so fast. I didn't ask her to come. And, besides, she didn't come to see me." "Did she tell you that?" "I have taken precious good care that she shouldn't have the chance. I saw her name--and her father's--on the hotel register; and just about that time I remembered that I could probably get a bite to eat out here." "You are queer! All men are a little queer, I think--always excepting Colonel-daddy. Don't you want to see her?" "Indeed, I don't!" "Not even for old times' sake?" "No; not even for old times' sake. I've given you the wrong impression completely, if you think there is any obligation on my part. It never got beyond the watch-case picture stage, as I have told you. It might have drifted on to the other things in the course of time, simply because neither of us might have known any better than to let it drift. But that's all a back number, now." "Just the same, her coming shocked you." "It certainly did," he confessed soberly; and then: "Have you forgotten what I told you about the circumstances under which I left home?" "_Oh!_" she murmured, and as once before there was a little gasp to go with the word. Then: "She wouldn't--she wouldn't----" "No," he answered; "she wouldn't; but her father would." "So her father wanted her to marry the other man, did he? What was he like--the other man? I don't believe you've ever told me anything about him." Smith's laugh was an easing of strains. "Now your 'control' is playing tricks on you. There were a dozen other men, more or less." "And her picture was in the watch-case of each?" "You've pumped me dry," he returned, the sardonic humor reasserting itself. "I haven't her watch-case list; I never had it. But I guess it's within bounds to suppose that she got the little pictures from the photographer by the half-dozen, at least. Young women in my part of the world don't think much of the watch-case habit; I mean they don't regard it seriously."