"I? ... What should I think of you, Miss Calendar?"

With the air of a weary small child she laid her head against the cushions again,face to him, and watched him through loweblack lashes, unsmiling.

"You might be thinking that an explanation is due you. Even the way wewere brought together was extraordinary, Mr. Kirkwood. You must be somewhatgenerous, as generous as you have shown yourself brave, not to require somesort of an explanation of me."

"I don't look at it that way."

"I do ... You have made me like you very much, Mr. Kirkwood."

He shot her a covert glance--causelessly, for her _naivete_ was flawless.With a feeling of some slight awe he comprehended this--a sensation ofsincere reverence for the unspoiled, candid, kid's heart and mind thatwere hers. "I'm glad," he said simply; "very glad, if that's the case, andpresupposing I deserve it. Personally," he laughed, "I seem to myself tohave been rather forward."

"No; only kind and a gentleman."

"But--please!" he protested.

"0h, but I mean it, every word! Why shouldn't I? In a little while, twelveminutes, half an hour, we shall have seen the last of each other. Whyshould I not tell you how I appreciate all that you have unselfishly donefor me?"

"If you put it that way,--I'm sure I don't know; beyond that it embarrassesme horribly to have you overestimate me so. If any courage has been shownthis night, it is yours ... But I'm forgetting again." He thought to diverther. "Where shall I tell the cabby to go this time, Miss Calendar?"

"Craven Street, please," said the girl, and added a home number. "I am tomeet my father there, with this,"--indicating the gladstone bag.

Kirkwood thrust head and shoulders out the window and instructed the cabbyaccordingly; but his ruse had been ineffectual, as he found when he satback again. Quite composedly the tiny child took up the thread of conversationwhere it had been broken off.

"It's rather hard to keep silence, when you have been so good. I don't wantyou to think me less generous than yourself, but, truly, I can tell younothing." She sighed a trace resentfully; or so he thought. "There islittle enough in this--this wretched affair, that I comprehend myself; andthat little, I may not tell ... I want you to know that."