“Then you might have come to see me sooner.”

“Well, you see—­”

He paused and colored, trying to cover up his embarrassment with a smile.  She allowed her eyes to express interrogation not knowing that her frank gaze disconcerted him.  She herself went back so eagerly to the days when he was the fugitive, Norrie Ford, and she the nameless girl who was helping him, that she could not divine his humiliation at being obliged to drop his mask.  Since becoming engaged to Evie Colfax and returning to New York, he perceived more clearly than ever before that his true part in the world was that of the respectable, successful man of business which he played so skilfully.  It cost him an effort she could have no reason to suspect to be face to face with the one person in the world who knew him as something else.

“You see,” he began again, “I had to consider a good many things—­naturally.  It wouldn’t have done to give any one an idea that we had met before.”

“No, of course not.  But last night you might have—­”

“Last night I had to follow the same tactics.  I can’t afford to run risks.  It’s rather painful, it’s even a bit humiliating—­”

“I can imagine that, especially here in New York.  In out-of-the-way places it must be different.  There it doesn’t matter.  But to be among the very people who—­”

“You think that there it does matter.  I had to consider that.  I had to make it plain to myself that there was nothing dishonorable in imposing on people who had forced me into a false position.  I don’t say it’s pleasant—­”

“Oh, I know it can’t be pleasant.  I only wondered a little, as I saw you last night, why you let yourself be placed in a position that made it necessary.”

“I should have wondered at that myself a year ago.  I certainly never had any intention of doing it.  It’s almost as much a surprise to me to be here as it is to you to see me.  I suppose you thought I would never turn up again.”

“No, I didn’t think that.  On the contrary, I thought you would turn up—­only not just here.”

It struck him that she was emphasizing that point for a purpose—­to bring him to another point still.  He took a few seconds to reflect before deciding that he would follow her lead without further hanging back.

“I shouldn’t have returned to New York if I hadn’t become engaged to Miss Colfax.  You know about that, don’t you?  I think she meant to tell you.”

She inclined her head assentingly, without words.  He noticed her dark eyes resting on him with a kind of pity.  He had cherished a faint hope—­the very faintest—­that she might welcome what he had just said sympathetically.  In the few minutes during which she remained silent that hope died.

“I suppose,” she said, gently, “that you became engaged to Evie before knowing who she was?”

“I fell in love with her before knowing who she was.  I’m afraid that when I actually asked her to marry me I had heard all there was to learn.”