He stopped at the first sound of her voice, looked back and saw her, saw the man behind her, and comprehended the situation immediately. Without speaking, he stepped to her side and offered his arm, which she took for one happy moment when the delightful sense of his protection was too strong for her, and then--reacting violently from that mood--released. "I--I am _mortified_ with myself for being such a fool," she said angrily; "but really that person did frighten me. I don't know what is the matter with Melbourne to-night--I suppose it is the Exhibition." And she went on to explain how she came to be abroad alone at that hour, and to explain away, as she hoped, her apparent satisfaction in meeting him. "It seems to promise for a fine day, does it not?" she concluded airily, looking up at the sky. Paul Brion put his hands in his pockets. He was mortified, too. When he spoke, it was with icy composure. "Are you going to the opening?" "Yes," said Patty. "Of course we are." "With your swell friends, I suppose?" "Whom do you mean by our swell friends? Mrs. Duff-Scott is not in Melbourne, I believe--if you allude to her. But she is not swell. The only swell person we know is Mrs. Aarons, and she is not our friend." He allowed the allusion to Mrs. Aarons to pass. "Well, I hope you will have good seats," he said, moodily. "It will be a disgusting crush and scramble, I expect." "Seats? Oh, we are not going to have seats," said Patty. "We are going to mingle with the common herd, and look on at the civic functions, humbly, from the outside. _We_ are not swell"--dwelling upon the adjective with a malicious enjoyment of the suspicion that he had not meant to use it--"and we like to be independent." "O yes, I know you do. But you'll find the Rights of Woman not much good to you to-morrow in the Melbourne streets, I fancy, if you go there on foot without an escort. May I ask how you propose to take care of yourselves?" "We are going," said Patty, "to start very early indeed, and to take up a certain advantageous position that we have already selected before the streets fill. We shall have a little elevation above the heads of the crowd, and a wall at our backs, and--the three of us together--we shall see the procession beautifully, and be quite safe and comfortable." "Well, I hope you won't find yourself mistaken," he replied. A few minutes later Patty burst into the room where her sisters were sitting, placidly occupied with their bonnet-making, her eyes shining with excitement. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth," she cried breathlessly, "Paul Brion is going to ask you to let him be our escort to-morrow. But you won't--oh, you _won't_--have him, will you?" "No, dear," said Elizabeth, serenely; "not if you would rather not. Why should we? It will be broad daylight, when there can be no harm in our being out without an escort. We shall be much happier by ourselves." "Much happier than with _him_," added Patty, sharply.