"My!" sighed Mary Alice, "I'm glad you didn't tell me before we went. As nearly as I can remember, I talked to the Admiral about the Fifth Avenue shopwindows, and to the General about the Jumel Mansion—which he said he had never seen but had always meant to see—and to the painter—what did I talk to the painter about? Oh! my pink beads. He admired the colour."
"Yes," said Godmother, "and if you had known who they were you would probably have tried to talk to the Admiral about ships and sea-fights, and to the painter about the Metropolitan Museum, and would have bored them terribly. Most real people, I think, like to be taken for what they are rather than for what they may have done. That is one of the things I learned in my long years in Europe where I was constantly finding myself in conversation with some one I did not know. We always began on a basis of common humanity, and we soon found our mutual interests, and enjoyed talking about them. It taught me a great deal about people and the folly of taking any of them on other people's estimates."
But all this was only mildly interesting, now, compared with "the young man lion."
Of course they had to tell him, first thing when he came, that Mary Alice did not know who he was. He looked a little surprised at first; then he seemed to relish the joke hugely. When Godmother added certain explanations, he grew grave again.
"I like that," he said. "I think it's a fine game, and I wish I might play it. I can't, most of the time. But I can play it with you, if you'll let me," he went on, turning to Mary Alice. She nodded assent. "That's splendid!" he cried. "I haven't played a jolly game like this since I was a boy. Now, you're not to think I'm a king in disguise or anything like that. There's really nothing about me that's at all interesting; only, on account of something that has happened to me, people are talking about me—for nine days or so. I'll be going on, in a day or two, and every one will forget. Now let's play the game. May I make toast?"
"You may," she said.
In a little while, some one came to call on Godmother who took the caller into the library; and the toast-making went on undisturbed.
Whoever he was, he seemed to know something about camp-fires; and squatting on the rug before the glowing grate, toasting bread, reminded him of things he had heard strange men tell, as the intimacy of the night fire in the wilderness brought their stories out. It was fascinating talk, and Mary Alice listened enthralled.
"I didn't know I had that much talk in me," he laughed, a little confusedly, as he rose to go. "It must be the surroundings that are responsible—and the game."
Godmother, whose caller was gone, asked him to stay to dinner.