“Now, that was really romantic,” said Evelyn, who had caught the idea.  “Miriam related her adventure, but was sorely puzzled to know to whom she was indebted for such chivalrous aid.”

“I am glad to have been of service to Miss Monfort,” he rejoined, deferentially, “but I merely obeyed an impulse strong with me.  I should have been wanting to myself to have done otherwise than defend a helpless woman.”

“There could not have been a more favorable opening to your acquaintance, certainly,” observed Evelyn significantly; then, turning away and crossing the apartment, she applied herself to the entertainment of the elder Mr. Bainrothe, “Mr. Basil,” as we called him after his son came, by way of distinction between the two, since the word “old” seemed invidious in his case, and we characterized them as we would have done two brothers.

Indeed, in manner, in bearing, in something of quiet repose entirely wanting in the father, and which usually seems the accompaniment of age or experience, the son seemed the elder man of the two.  I had yet to learn that there is an experience so perfect and subtle that it assumes the air of ignorance, and triumphs in its simplicity over inferior craft itself.

When the mind has worked out the problems of life to its own satisfaction, like the school-boy who has proved his sums, it wipes the slate clean again and sets down the bare result—­the laborious process it effaces.  All is simplified.

“I was fearful that you had been hurt last night, Mr. Bainrothe,” I hazarded, “from the expression of your face as I caught it at the box-door.  I am glad to see you well this evening.”

“I was hurt,” he said, “to be frank with you.  The scoundrel gave me a severe blow on the chest, which brought a little blood to my lips, and for the time I suffered.  Had it not been for the faintness under which I was laboring I could not have failed to identify you.  But you are generous enough to forgive this oversight I am convinced.”

“Oh, surely! it was most natural under the circumstances.  I have a habit of fixing faces at a glance that is rather uncommon, I believe.  I never forget any one I have seen even for a moment, or where I have seen them, or even a name I have heard.”

“A royal gift truly, one of the secrets of popularity, I believe.  It is not so with me usually, though when my eye once drinks in a face” (and he looked steadily at mine while he spoke those words slowly, as if wrapped in contemplation), “it never departs again.  ’A thing of beauty is a joy forever,’ you know, Miss Monfort.”  He sighed slightly.

“Yes, that line has passed into an axiom, the only sensible one, I believe, by-the-by, that Keats ever wrote,” I laughed.

“Oh, you do Keats injustice.  Have you studied him, Miss Monfort?”

“Studied poetry?  What an idea!  No, but I have tried to read him, and failed.  I think he had a very crude, chaotic mind indeed; I like more clearness.”