“What did he look like, Opal?” asked Lady Fletcher.

“Like a Greek god!” answered the girl, without a second’s hesitation.

“What!”

Both women gasped, simultaneously.  They were dismayed.

“Oh, don’t be shocked!  He had the full panoply of society war-paint on.  He was certainly properly clothed, but as to his being in his right mind, I have my doubts—­serious doubts!  He stared!”

“I hope you didn’t stare at him, Opal!”

“Well, I did!  What could he expect?  And I laughed at him, too!  But I don’t believe he saw me at all, more’s the pity.  I am quite sure he would have fallen in love with me if he had!”

“Opal!”

Opal was thoroughly enjoying herself now.  She did enjoy shocking people who were so delightfully shockable!

“Why, ’Opal’?" and her mimicry was irresistible.  “Don’t you think I’m a bit lovable, cousin?—­not a bit?  You discourage me!  I’m doomed to be a spinster, I suppose!  Ah, me!  And I’d far rather be the spinster’s cat!  Cats aren’t worried about the conventions and all that sort of thing.  Happy animals!  While we poor two-footed ones they call human—­only we aren’t really more than half so—­have to keep our claws well hidden and purr hypocritically, no matter how roughly the world rubs our fur the wrong way, nor how wild we are to scratch and spit and bristle!  Wouldn’t you like to be a cat, Alice?”

“Goodness, child!  What an idea!  I am very well contented, Opal, with the sphere of life into which I have been placed!”

“Happy, happy Alice!  May that state of mind endure forever!  But come!  Haven’t you an idea, either of you, who my Knight of the Stare can be?”

“You didn’t describe him, Opal.”

Opal opened her eyes in wide surprise.

“Didn’t I?  Why, I thought I did, graphically!  A Greek god, dressed en regle.  What more do you want?  I am sure anyone ought to recognize him by that.”

Her listeners looked at her in real consternation, which she was quick to see.  Her eyes danced.

“Well, if you insist upon details, I can supply a few, I guess, if I try.  I am really dying of curiosity to know who he is and why he stared.  Of course I didn’t look at him very closely.  It wouldn’t have been—­er—­what do you call it?—­proper.  And of course I could not see clearly at night, anyway.  But I did notice he was about six feet tall.  Imagine me, poor little me, looking up to six feet!  With broad shoulders; an athletic, muscular figure, like a young Hercules; a well-shaped head, like Apollo’s, covered with curls of fair hair; a smooth, clear skin, with the tint of the rose in his cheek that deepened to blood-red when his blue eyes, in which the skies of all the world seemed to be mirrored, stared with an expression like that of a man upon whom the splendor of some glorious Paradise was just dawning.  He looked like an Englishman, yet something in his attitude and general appearance made me think that he was not.  His hands—­”