Long the girl looked at the picture, and when the maid, her tasks completed, left the room, she noticed Miss Austin still staring at the fine face of the President-elect of the University of Corinth.

After a time, she reached for a pair of scissors, and cut out the portrait and the article which it illustrated.

She put the clipping in a portfolio, which she then locked in her trunk, and the picture she placed on her dresser.

That night she went to the lecture. She went alone, for Gordon Lockwood did not reappear and no one else knew of her going.

“Shall I have a key, or will you be up?” she asked of Mrs. Adams, as she left the house.

“Oh, we’ll be up.” The round, shrewd eyes looked at her kindly. “You’re lucky to get a ticket. Doctor Waring’s lectures are crowded.”

“Good night,” said Miss Austin, and went away.

The lecture room was partly filled when she arrived, and her ticket entitled her to a seat near the front.

Being seated, she fell into a brown study, or, at least, sat motionless and apparently in deep thought.

Gordon Lockwood, already there, saw her come in, and after she was in her place, he quietly arose and went across the room, taking a seat directly behind her.

Of this she was quite unaware, and the student of human nature gave himself up to a scrutiny of the stranger.

He saw a little head, its mass of dark, almost black hair surmounted by a small turban shaped hat, of taupe colored velvet, with a curly ostrich tip nestling over one ear.

Not that her ears were visible, for Miss Austin was smartly groomed and her whole effect modish.

She had removed her coat, which she held in her lap. Her frock was taupe colored, of a soft woolen material, ornamented with many small buttons. These tiny buttons formed two rows down her back, from either shoulder to the waist line, and they also formed a border round the sailor collar.

They were, perhaps, Lockwood decided, little balls, rather than buttons, and he idly counted them as he sat watching her.

He hoped she would turn her head a trifle, but she sat as motionless as a human being may.

He marveled at her stillness, and impatiently waited 

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