"He may be," she repeated dreamily.

"So--I'll ask for you."

"We _could_ write you, Mr. Gatewood."

He said hastily: "It's no trouble for me to come; I walk every morning.""But there would be no use, I think, in your coming very soon. All I--all Mr. Keen could do for a while would be to report progress--"

"That is all I dare look for: progress--for the present."

During the time that he remained--which was not very long--neither of them spoke until he arose to take his departure.

"Good-by, Miss Southerland. I hope you may find the person I have been searching for."

"Good-by, Mr. Gatewood. . . . I hope we shall; . . . but I--don't--know."

And, as a matter of fact, she did not know; she was rather excited over nothing, apparently; and also somewhat preoccupied with several rather disturbing emotions the species of which she was interested in determining. But to label and catalogue each of these emotions separately required privacy and leisure to think--and she also wished to look very earnestly at the reflection of her own face in the mirror of her own chamber. For it is a trifle exciting--though but an innocent coincidence--to be compared, feature by feature, to a young man's ideal. As far as that went, she excelled it, too; and, as she stood by the desk, alone, gathering up her notes, she suddenly bent over and lifted the hem of her gown a trifle--sufficient to reassure herself that the dainty pair of shoes she wore, would have baffled the efforts of any Venus ever sculptured. And she was perfectly right.

"Of course," she thought to herself, "his ideal runaway hasn't enormous feet. He, too, must have been struck with the similarity between me and his ideal, and when he realized that I also noticed it, he was frightened by my frown into saying that her feet were enormous. How silly! . . . For I didn't mean to frighten him. . . . He frightened me--once or twice--I mean he irritated me--no, interested me, is what I do mean. . . . Heigho! I wonder why she ran away? I wonder why he can't find her? . . . It's--it's silly to run away from a man like that. . . . Heigho! . . . She doesn't deserve to be found. There is nothing to be afraid of--nothing to alarm anybody in a man like that."

So 

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