flying.

"He trusts that she is unmarried, but if she _is_ (underlined) married he doesn't want to find her," she wrote.

"That," she explained, "goes under the head of 'General Remarks' at the bottom of the page"--she held it out, pointing with her pencil. He nodded, staring at her slender hand.

"Age?" she continued, setting the pad firmly on her rounded, yielding knee and looking up at him.

"Age? Well, I--as a matter of fact, I could only venture a surmise. You know," he said earnestly, "how difficult it is to guess ages, don't you, Miss Southerland?"

"How old do you _think_ she is? Could you not hazard a guess--judging, say, from her appearance?"

"I have no data--no experience to guide me." He was becoming involved again. "Would you, for practice, permit me first to guess your age, Miss Southerland?"

"Why--yes--if you think that might help you to guess hers."

So he leaned back in his armchair and considered her a very long time--having a respectable excuse to do so. Twenty times he forgot he was looking at her for any purpose except that of disinterested delight, and twenty times he remembered with a guilty wince that it was a matter of business.

"Perhaps I had better tell you," she suggested, her color rising a little under his scrutiny.

"Is it eighteen? Just _her_ age!"

"Twenty-one, Mr. Gatewood--and you _said_ you didn't know her age."

"I have just remembered that I _thought_ it might be eighteen; but I dare say I was shy three years in her case, too. You may put it down at twenty-one."

For the slightest fraction of a second the brown eyes rested on his, the pencil hovered in hesitation. Then the eyes fell, and the moving fingers wrote.

"Did you write 'twenty-one'?" he inquired carelessly.

"I did not, Mr. Gatewood."

"What did you write?"

"I wrote: 'He doesn't appear to know much about her age.'"

 Prev. P 13/152 next