“And yet we are told,” she was saying in a low voice, whose music suddenly impressed the musician, “that—­

    ’Down to Gehenna or up to the throne,
    He travels the fastest, who travels alone.’”

“Just at the moment we are not bound for either of those places,” he assured her.  “We are going to the Square.”

“Why was it?” she demanded suddenly.  For a few minutes they had been silent, and Paul had revised his estimate.  She could hardly be as old as twenty two.  Perhaps she might be twenty.

“Really you are exaggerating,” he laughed.  “I was neither astonished nor shocked.  I was only surprised, and when I tell you why I shall no longer be a man of mystery, consequently I shall no longer be a man of interest.”

“But my curiosity will be satisfied.  Isn’t that quite as important?”

He shook his head.  His own curiosity was far from satisfied.  He was still wondering why she had no kind word to say for his music.

“I was just surprised to find you there—­alone,” he said at last.

“Oh!”

Until the ’bus swung into view of the Metropolitan tower neither of them spoke, and then the man turned to look at his companion and found her smiling to herself.  It struck him that if she would only laugh aloud, it would be worth hearing.  But of that, at that moment, he said nothing.

“Won’t you share the joke with me?” he smiled, and she said: 

“I was just thinking of your solicitude about my being alone on Fifth avenue, after all the formidable places where I’ve been alone—­in one-night stands.”

“One-night stands?” he repeated vaguely after her and she replied only with a matter-of-fact nod, then, for his further enlightenment: 

“You see I am an actress and most of my work has been on the road.”

Paul Burton’s face did not succeed in masking his surprise at the announcement.

“Have I shocked you again?” she demurely inquired.

“Shocked me, no.”  He disavowed with an almost confused haste.  “I suppose I was surprised because the few actresses I have known have all been so unlike you.”

“You mean,” she amplified, “because I don’t make up for the street?”

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he laughed, then added:  “Now if you had told me you were playing truant from a young ladies’ seminary, I would have found it quite natural.  I saw you out front just before I began playing.  Somehow the simple directness of your expression—­I hoped it was anticipation—­didn’t seem to me characteristic of the stage.  I fancied that professional people were usually chary of enthusiasm.”

“There are at least several sorts of stage people, and they’re not all gutter-children,” she answered.  “And then I haven’t always been an actress.  It was thrust upon me—­by necessity.”

“When I play,” the man assured her, “the faces out front always grow vague to me.  Tonight I saw yours when the others had gone.  Then I lost yours, too.  I hope I didn’t disappoint you.”