'What do you mean?'
'Simply that it is my duty to warn you, and to ask you if you know of any reason why you should be followed, or watched, or menaced by any manner of danger?'
'No'—she slowly shook her fair head—'no reason whatever.'
'And may I ask you about this person, this brunette? I would not say 'this woman.''
She started slightly, and leaned toward me.
'Is she here still?' she whispered.
I turned my head and cast a deliberate glance around the room.
'I do not see her,' I said; 'but she may be below, with an eye on the staircase.'
'It's more than likely. It's little I can tell you,' she said. 'She ran up to me that morning at the gate, her face beaming and her hand held out, and when she was close to me, and I drew away from her, she began the most profuse apologies: she was very near-sighted, and she had mistaken me for an old acquaintance she had not seen for some time; then she kept on by my side, prattling about her "mamma," who had not been able to leave the hotel since they came; of her dread of being alone, and her eagerness to see the Fair. She had hoped, when she saw me, that she had found someone who would let her "just follow along, so that she would not feel so much alone," etc. I did not like her volubility, yet I could see no way, short of absolute rudeness, of shaking her off. When I met a New York acquaintance, down near the lake shore, she quite surprised me by quietly slipping away. Do you think——' She paused, and arose with a quick, easy grace which seemed inherent. 'Will you come down and be introduced to my aunt?' she asked. 'I have great confidence in her judgment of—gentlemen, and she ought to know this; that is, if you can give me the time.'
'My time is entirely yours,' I declared recklessly, 'and nothing would give me more pleasure than to pay my entirely sincere respects to that lovely woman I saw in your company, and who, I am almost certain, saw me playing the spy upon her niece.'