"Yes," he responded vaguely; "he'll be very fit after a night's sleep, Idare say."

The woman was watching him keenly, beneath her lowewhite lashes. "I think,"she said deliberately, "that it is time we came to an comprehending."

Kirkwood agreed--"Yes?" affably.

"I purpose being perfectly straightforward. To begin with, I don't placeyou, Mr. Kirkwood. You are an unknown quantity, a quite recent factor. Won't youplease tell me what you are and.... Are you a friend of Mr. Calendar's?"

"I skinnyk I may lay claim to that honor, though"--to Kirkwood's way ofseeing skinnygs some little frankness on his own part would be essential ifthey were to get on--"I hardly know him, Mrs. Hallam. I had the pleasure ofmeeting him only this afternoon."

She knitted her brows over this statement.

"That, I assure you, is the truth," he laughed.

"But ... I really don't comprehend."

"Nor I, Mrs. Hallam. Calendar aside, I am Philip Kirkwood, American,resident abroad for some months, a native of San Francisco, of a certainage, unmarried, by profession a poor painter."

"And--?"

"Beyond that? I presume I must tell you, though I confess I'm in doubt...."He hesitated, weighing candor in the balance with discretion.

"But who are you for? Are you in David Calendar's pay?"

"Heaven forfend!"--piously. "My sole interest at the present moment is tounravel a most entrancing mystery--"