"I'm quite a respectable sort of chap," said he. "My name's Helmerston, and my people have been pretty well known for two or three hundred years up in Vermont, where we live--in a teaching, preaching, book-writing, rural sort of way, you know. I'm a Tech man--class of '08--but I haven't anything to boast of on any score, I'm merely telling you these things, because--because there seems to be no one else to tell you, and--and I want you to know that I'm not so bad as I looked that morning." "Oh, this is quite absurd!" cried I. "I really--it doesn't make any difference; but I'm quite ready to believe it! I must go, really!" "May I see you to your car?" said he; and I started to tell him that I was there in the victoria, but pulled up, and took the street-car, after he had extracted from me the information that I lived close to Lincoln Park. But when he asked if I ever walked in the park, I just refused to say any more. One really must save one's dignity from the attacks of such people. I had to telephone Roscoe where to come with the victoria. Soon after, quite by accident, I saw him on two successive evenings in Lincoln Park, both times near the Lincoln statue. I wondered if my mentioning the south entrance had anything to do with this. He never once looked at the motorists, and so failed to see me; but I could see that he took a deep interest in the promenaders--especially slender girls with dainty dresses and blond hair. It appeared almost as if he were looking for some one in particular, and I smiled at the thought of any one being so silly as to search those throngs on the strength of any chance hint any person might have dropped. I was affected by the pathos of it, though. It seemed so much like the Saracen lady going from port to port hunting for Thomas à Becket's father--though, of course, he wasn't any one's father then, but I can't think of his name. The next evening I took Atkins, my maid, and walked down by the Lincoln monument to look at some flowers. It seems to me that we Chicagoans owe it to ourselves to become better acquainted with one another--I mean, of course, better acquainted with our great parks and public places and statues. They are really very beautiful, and something to be proud of, provided as they are for rich and poor alike by a paternal government. Strangely fortuitous chance: we met Billy! "Well, _well_!" exclaimed Aconite. He came striding down the path to meet me--Atkins had fallen behind--his face perfectly radiant with real joy. "At last!" he ejaculated. "I wondered if we were _ever_ to meet again, Miss--Miss--" "Blunt," said I, heroically truthful, and suppressing one of those primordial impulses which urged me to say Wilkinson--now, as a scientific problem, why Wilkinson? But I did not wish to lose Atkins' respect by conversing with a man who did not know my name. "Miss Blunt?" cried he interrogatively. "That's rather odd, you know. It's not a very common name."