“I’m quite sure that my reputation, whatever it be, won’t suffer by what you intimate!” he smiled, and handed her into a chair.

“You were much surprised to see me, n’est-ce pas?” she asked low, leaning close.

“Much more than much,” he replied confidentially.

“Honest?” she asked, still low and close.

“Much more than honest,” he answered.  “It’s been a long time since we met.”

“Three months!”

“Three months is much more than long—­sometimes.”

She gave him an amused smile.

“I was thinking of you only last night,” he volunteered.

“What suggested me?” she asked quickly.

“I suppose it must have been your proximity,” he replied easily and instantly.

“Wireless,” she laughed, “or community of interests?”

“I don’t know—­the impression was vivid enough, while it lasted, for you to have been in the room.”

“Maybe I was—­in spirit.”

“I’m sure of it,” he replied.  “How long have you been in Washington, Madeline?”

“You should have felt my proximity as soon as I arrived,” she responded.

“I felt it nearing when you left Paris—­and growing closer as time went on.  You see, I have a remarkable intuition as—­to you.”

“Charming!” she trilled.  “Why not get a penchant for me, as well?”

“Maybe I have—­and don’t venture to declare myself.”

“You!” she mocked

“Meaning that I can’t get a penchant, or that I am not afraid to declare?”

“Both!” she laughed.  “Now quit talking nonsense and tell me about yourself.  What have you been doing, and what are you doing?”

“At the very profitable and busy occupation of killing time,” he replied.

“Of course, but what else?”

“Nothing!”

“What, for instance, were you doing last night?”

“Last night?  I dined at the Club, played auction and went home at a seemly hour.”

“Home?  Where is that?”

“The Collingwood.”

“And what adventure befell you on the way—­if any?”

“Adventure?  I haven’t had an adventure since I left the Continent.”

“Sure?”

“Perfectly.  I wish I had—­to vary the monotony.”

She traced a diagram on the rug with the tip of her slipper.

“It depends on what you regard as an adventure,” she smiled.  “I should think the episode of the cab, with what followed at your apartment, was very much in that line?”

“Oh, to be sure!” exclaimed Harleston, with an air of complete surprise.  “However did—­Great Heavens, Madeline, were you the woman of the roses and the cab?”

“You know that I wasn’t!” she replied.

“Then how do you know of the cab of the sleeping horse, and what followed?” he inquired blandly.

“I dreamed it.”

“Wonderful!  Simply wonderful!”