After that when they met on this little elevation, she bowed to him and sometimes ventured a remark or two.  He did not seem over-anxious to talk but he met her troubled face with calm and unvarying, though somewhat absent-minded courtesy.  He replied to her questions perfunctorily, told her whom he served, betraying, however, in turn, no inquisitiveness concerning her.  For him she was just some one who came and went, and incidentally interfered with his study of the sky-line.

By degrees she confided in him; as one so alone she was glad of almost any one to confide in.  She wanted, indeed, needed badly, a situation as lady’s maid or second maid.  She had tried and tried for a position; unfortunately her recommendations were mostly foreign—­from Milan, Moscow, Paris.  People either scrutinized them suspiciously, or mon Dieu! couldn’t read them.  It was hard on her; she had had such a time!  She, a Viennese, with all her experience in France, Italy, Russia, found herself at her wits’ end in this golden America.  Wasn’t it odd, tres drole? She had laughed and laughed when she hadn’t cried about it.

She had even tried singing in a little music-hall, a horribly common place, but her voice had failed her.  Perhaps there was a vacancy at Miss Van—­what was her name?  There was a place vacant; the maid with the saucy nose, Mr. Heatherbloom indifferently vouchsafed, had just left to marry out of service.

“How fortunate!” the fair questioner cried; then sighed.  Miss Van Rolsen, being a maiden lady, would probably be most particular about recommendations; that they should be of the home-made, intelligible brand, from people you could call up by telephone and interrogate.  Had she been very particular in his case?  Mr. Heatherbloom said “no”—­not joyfully, and explained.  Though she drew words from him, he talked to the sky-line.  She listened; seemed thinking deeply.

“You are not pleased to be there?” Keenly.

“I?—­Oh, of course!” Quickly.

She did not appear to note his changed manner.  “This Miss Van Rolsen,—­isn’t she the one whose niece—­Miss Elizabeth Dalrymple—­recently refused the hand and heart of a Russian prince?” she said musingly.

“Refused?” he cried suddenly.  “You mean—­” He stopped; the words had been surprised from him.

“Accepted?” She looked at him closer.  “Of course; I remember now seeing it in the paper; I was thinking of some one else.  One of the other lords, dukes, or noblemen the town is so full of just now.”

He got up rather suddenly, bowed and went.  With narrowing eyes she watched him walk away, but when he had gone all melancholy disappeared from her face; she stretched herself and laughed. “Voila! Sonia Turgeinov, comedienne!”

Mr. Heatherbloom did not repair to the point of elevation the next day, nor the day after; but she met him the third day near the Seventy-second Street entrance.  More than that, she insinuated herself at his side; at first rather to his discomfort.  Later he forgot the constraint her presence occasioned him, when something she said caused him to look upon her with new favor.  Beauty had momentarily escaped his vigilance and enjoyed a mad romp after a squirrel before she was captured.