The King of Arcadia

One of Ballard's gifts was pertinacity; and after he had told the waiter what to bring, he returned to her question.

"It is taking me long enough to get acquainted with you," he ventured. "It will be two years next Tuesday since we first met at the Herbert Lassleys', and you have been delightfully good to me, and even chummy with me--when you felt like it. Yet do you know you have never once gone back of your college days in speaking of yourself? I don't know to this blessed moment whether you ever had any girlhood; and that being the case----"

"Oh, spare me!" she begged, in well-counterfeited dismay. "One would think----"

"One would not think anything of you that he ought not to think," he broke in gravely; adding: "We are a long way past the Alleghanies now, and I am glad you are aware of an America somewhat broader than it is long. Do I know any of your sight-seers, besides Mrs. Van Bryck?"

"I don't know; I'll list them for you," she offered. "Th