“Yes,” said Mae, nodding her head, and repeating her original statement under another form, as a sort of conclusion and proof to the conversation.  “Yes, a natural acquaintance may develop into your best friend or your worst foe.”  She started on page number eleven of her letter, dipping her pen deep into the ink-stand and giving such a particular flourish to her right arm, as to nearly upset the bouquet of flowers at her side.  It was Bero’s gift.  Norman Mann put out his hand to save it.  His fingers fell in among the soft flowers and touched something stiff.  It felt like a little roll of paper.  Indignantly and surprisedly he pulled it out.  “What is this?” he cried.

Mae sprang forward, her cheeks aflame.  “It is mine,” she said.

“Did you put it here?” asked Norman.

“No.”

“Then how do you know it is yours?  Is not this a carnival bouquet, idly tossed from the street to the balcony?”

Mae straightened to her utmost height which wasn’t lofty then and said hastily:  “Mr. Mann, this is utterly absurd, and more.  I am not a child, and if I catch an idly flung bouquet that holds idle secrets, I surely have a right to them.”  She laughed hurriedly.  “Come, give me my note,—­some Italian babble, I dare say.”

Norman looked at her for a minute with a struggle in his heart and a flash of half scorn, Mae thought, on his face.  What was he thinking?

That the child was in danger.  He had no doubt in his own mind now that the flowers and the note came from Bero and that Mae knew it.  He held the paper crushed in his hand, while he looked at her.

“I presume you will never forgive me,” he said, “but I must warn you, not as a mentor or even as a friend,” noticing her annoyed air, “but as one soul is bound to warn another soul, seeing it in danger.  Take care of yourself, and there!” And taking the crushed note between his two hands, he deliberately tore it asunder and threw the halves on the table before her.

“And there, and there, and there!” cried Mae, tearing the fragments impetuously, and scattering the sudden little snow flakes before him.  Then, with a look of supreme contempt, she left the room.

Norman looked down on the white heap that lay peacefully at his feet.  “I am a fool,” he thought.

“Little Mae Madden, little Mae Madden, I am so sorry for you,” repeated that excited bit of womankind to herself in the silence of her own room.  “What won’t they drive you to yet?  How dreadful they think you are?  And only last night we thought things were all coming around beautifully!”

And she looked at herself pityingly in the glass.  A mirror is a dangerous thing for a woman who has come to pity herself.  She sees the possibilities of her face too clearly.  And Mae, looking into the mirror then, realized to an extent she never had before, that her eyes and mouth might be powerful friends to herself and foes to Norman Mann, if she so desired.  And to-day she did so desire, and went down to the Carnival with as reckless and dangerous a spirit as good King Pasquino could have asked.