After we had stood beside her, for a time, talking and gazing down into her beautiful world-wise eyes, the gentleman with whom she was supping took pity upon us, and upon the waiters, whose passageway we blocked, and invited us to sit down.

It was doubly delightful to meet her there in Washington, for besides being beautiful and celebrated, she had just come from New York and was able to give us news of mutual friends, bringing us up to date on suits for separation, alimony, and alienation of affections, on divorces and remarriages, and all the little items one loses track of when one has been away for a fortnight.

“I shall be playing in Washington all this week,” she said as we were about to leave.  “I hope that we may see each other again.”

Whom did she mean by “we”?  True, she looked at my companion as she spoke, but he was seated at one side of her and I at the other, and even with such eyes as hers, she could not have looked at both of us at once.  Certainly the hope she had expressed was shared by me. I hoped that “we” might meet again, and it seemed to me desirable at the moment that she should understand (and that my companion should be reminded) that he and I were as Damon and Pythias, as Castor and Pollux, as Pylades and Orestes, and all that sort of thing.  Therefore I leaped quickly at the word “we,” and, before my companion had time to answer, replied: 

“I hope so too.”

This brought her eyes to me.  She looked surprised, I thought, but what of that?  Don’t women like to be surprised?  Don’t they like men to be strong, resolute, determined, like heroes in the moving pictures?  Don’t they like to see a man handle matters with dash?  I was determined to be dashing.

“We are off to Virginia to-morrow morning,” I continued.  “We are going to Fredericksburg and Charlottesville, and into the fox-hunting country.  If we can get back here Saturday night let’s have a party.”

I spoke of the hunting country debonairely.  I did not care what she thought my companion was going to the hunting country for, but I did not wish her to think that I was going only to look on.  On the contrary, I desired her to suppose that I should presently be wearing a pair of beautiful, slim-legged riding boots and a pink coat, and leaping a thoroughbred mount over fences and gates.  I wished her to believe me a wild, reckless, devil of a fellow, and to worry throughout the week lest I be killed in a fall from my horse, and she never see me more—­poor girl!

That she felt such emotions I have since had reason to doubt.  However, the idea of a party after the play on Saturday night seemed to appeal to her, and it was arranged that my companion and I should endeavor to get back to Washington after the Piedmont Hunt races, which we were to attend on Saturday afternoon, and that if we could get back we should telegraph to her.

We kept our agreement—­but I shall come to that later.