She herself knew she was not successful with me, and when, after the coffee, the working-girl had taken the blind man and strayed with him for a few hundred yards into the woods, Miss Averill grew embarrassed. The more she tried to keep me from seeing it the more she betrayed it—not in words, or glances, or any trick of color, but in inner hesitations which only mind-reading could detect. As we still sat at the table, but each a little away from it, she gathered all her resources together to be the lady in authority. "I’m glad of a word alone with you because—" Apparently she could get no farther in this direction, and so took another line. "I think you said your business was with carpets, didn’t you?" "Somebody may have said it for me—especially after our little talk about the rug—but it didn’t come from me." Her hazel eyes rested on me frankly. "And it’s not?" "No, it’s not." "Oh, then—" Her tone was slightly that of disappointment. "Did you want it to be?" I smiled. "It isn’t that; but my brother thought it was—" "I’m sure I don’t know why—except for the rug. But one can know about rugs and not have to sell them, can’t one?" "It’s not a usual branch of knowledge, except among connoisseurs and artists—" "Oh, well!" "So my brother thought if you were in that kind of work he’d give you a note to a friend of his—-at the head of one of the big carpet establishments in New York—" "It’s awfully kind of him," I broke in, as she drew a letter from the bag she carried, "and if I needed it I’d take it; but—but I don’t need it. It—it wouldn’t be any good to me. I thank him none the less sincerely—and you, too, Miss Averill—" She looked at the ground, her long black lashes almost resting on her cheek. "I must seem to you very officious, but—" "Not in the slightest. I’m extremely grateful. If I required help there’s nobody—" "You don’t live in New York?" "I’m going to stay here for—for the present." "But not—not to work?" "That I shall have to see." "I suppose you’re a—a writer—or one of those things." "No, I’m not any of those things," I said, gravely; and at that we laughed. *CHAPTER IX* We got back to New York in time for me to begin the parade of the hotels. Taking this task seriously, I selected the biggest and made myself conspicuous by keeping on my feet.