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Miss Roberts glanced at Annie, and seeing that her face glowed with embarrassment, smothered her indignation, and replied with a colorless “Yes.”

“The only drawback,” continued Hunt, who manifestly thought he was making himself very agreeable, “is that such bosom friends always tell each other all their affairs, which of course involve the affairs of all their friends also. Now I suppose,” he added, with a knowing grin and something like a wink, “that what you don’t know about me is n’t worth knowing.”

“You ought to know, certainly,” said Miss Roberts.

“Not that I blame you,” he went on, ignoring her sarcasm. “There’s no confidence betrayed, for when I ‘m talking with a lady, I always adapt my remarks to the ears of her next friend. It prevents misunderstandings.”

Miss Roberts made no reply, and the silence attracted notice to the pitiable little dribble of forced talk with which Annie was trying to keep the other gentleman’s attention from the exhibition Hunt was making of himself. The latter, after a pause long enough to intimate that he thought it was Miss Roberts’s turn to say something, again took up the conversation, as if bound to be entertaining at any cost.

“Annie and I were passing your house the other day. What a queer little box it is! I should think you ‘d be annoyed by the howlings of that church next door. The —— are so noisy.”

“I am a —— myself,” said Miss Roberts, regarding him crushingly.

Hunt, of course, knew that, and had advisedly selected her denomination for his strictures. But he replied as if a little confused by his blunder:–

“I beg your pardon. You don’t look like one.”

“How do they usually look?” she asked sharply.

“Why, it is generally understood that they are rather vulgar, I believe, but you, I am sure, look like a person of culture.” He said this as if he thought he were conveying a rather neat compliment. Indignant as she was, Miss Roberts’s strongest feeling was compassion for Annie, and she bit her lips and made no reply.

After a moment’s silence, Hunt asked her how she liked his goatee. It was a new way of cutting his whiskers, and young ladies were generally close observers and therefore good judges of such matters. Annie, finding it impossible to keep up even the pretense of talking any longer, sat helplessly staring at the floor, and waiting in nerveless despair for what he would say next, fairly hating Lou because she did not go.

“What’s come over you, Annie?” asked Hunt briskly. “Are you talked out so soon? I suppose she is holding back to give you a chance to make my acquaintance, Miss Roberts, or do let me call you Lou. You must improve your opportunity, for she will want to know your opinion of me. May I hope it will prove not wholly unfavorable?” This last was with a killing smile.

“I had no idea it was so late. We must be going,” said Miss Roberts, rising. She had been lingering, in the hope that something would happen to leave a more pleasant impression of Hunt’s appearance, but seeing that matters were drifting from bad to worse, she hastened to break off the painful scene. Annie rose silently without saying a word, and avoided Lou’s eyes as she kissed her good-by.

“Must you go?” Hunt said. “I ‘m sure you would not be in such haste if you knew how rarely it is that my engagements leave me free to devote an evening to the ladies. You might call on Annie a dozen times and not meet me.”

As soon as the callers had gone, Hunt picked up the evening paper and sat down to glance it over, remarking lightly as he did so:–

“Rather nice girl, your friend, though she does n’t seem very talkative.”

Annie made no reply, and he looked up.

“What on earth are you staring at me in such an extraordinary manner for?”