S about two hundred miles from there to Asheville and `The Land of the Sky.

‘For two hours she answered his eager, boyish questions about
the country and its people, his eyes wide with admiration at her knowledge. The sun was sinking in a sea of scarlet and purple clouds behind
the tall buildings beside the park before she realized that they had been talking for more than two hours. She sprang to her feet, blushing and
confused. "Mercy, I had no idea it was so late." "Why--is it late?" he asked incredulously. "We must hurry----" She brushed the stray ringlets
of hair from her forehead, laughed and hurried down the pathway. They crossed the Park and took the Madison Avenue line to Twenty-third
Street. They were silent in the car. The roar of the traffic was deafening after the quiet of the summer house among the trees. "I can see you
home?" he inquired appealingly. "We get off at Twenty-third Street. “They stood on the steps at her door beside the Square and there was a
moment's awkward silence. He lifted his hat with a little chivalrous bow. "Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock in my car?" She smiled and
hesitated. "You'll have a bully time!" "It's Sunday," she stammered. "Sure, that's why I asked you." "I don't like to miss my church." "You go
to church every Sunday?" he asked in amazement. "Yes." "Well, just this once then. It'll do you good. And I'll drive as careful as a farmer."
"All right," she said in low tones, and extended her hand: "Good night----" "Good night, teacher!" he responded with a boyish wave of his
slender hand and quickly disappeared in the crowd. She rushed up the stairs, she cheeks a flame, her heart beating a tattoo of foolish joy. She
snatched the kitten from sleep and whispered in his tiny ear: "Oh, Kitty dear, I've had such an adventure! I've spent the happiest, silliest
afternoon of my life! I'm going to have a more wonderful day tomorrow. I just feel it. In a big racing automobile if you please,
Mr.Thomascat! Sorry I can't take you but the dust would blind you, Kitty dear. I'm sorry to tell you that you'll have to stay at home all day
alone and keep house. It's too bad. But I'll fix your milk and bread before I go and you must promise me on your sacred Persian cat's honor
not to look at my birds! “She hugged him violently and he purred his soft answer in song. "Oh, Kitty, I'm so happy--so foolishly happy!
“Mary attempted no analysis of her emotions. It was all too sudden, too stunning. She was content to feel and enjoy the first overwhelming
experience of life. Hour after hour she lay among the pillows of her couch in the dim light of the street lamps and lazily watched the passing
Saturday evening crowds. The world was beautiful. She undressed at last and went to bed, only to toss wide-eyed for hours. A hundred times
she reenacted the scene in the Library and recalled her first impression of Jim's personality. What could such an utterly unforeseen and
extraordinary meeting mean except that it was her Fate? Certainly he could not have planned it. Certainly she had not foreseen such an event.
It had never occurred to her in the wildest flights of fancy that she could meet and speak to a man under such conditions, to say nothing of
the walk in the Park and the hours she spent in the little summer house. And the strangest part of it all was that she could see nothing wrong
in it from beginning to end. It had happened in the simplest and most natural way imaginable. By the standards of conventional propriety her
act was the maddest folly; and yet she was still happy over it. There was one disquieting trait about him that made her a little uneasy. He used
the catch-words of the street gamins of New York without any consciousness of incongruity. She thought at first that he did this as the
Southern boy of culture and refinement unconsciously drops into the tones and dialect of the negro, by daily association. His constant use of
the expressive and characteristic "Gee" was startling, to say the least. And yet it came from his lips in such a boyish way she felt sure that it
was due to his embarrassment in the unusual position in which he had found himself with her. His helplessness with the dictionary was proof,
of course, that he was no scholar. And yet a boy might have a fair education in the schools of today and be unfamiliar with this ponderous
and dignified encyclopedia of words. It was impossible to believe that he was illiterate. His clothes, his carriage, even his manners made such
an idea preposterous. Besides, no inventor could be really illiterate. He may have been forced to work and only attended night schools. But if
he were a mechanic, capable of making a successful improvement on the desired and important parts of an automobile, he must have studied
the principles involved in his inventions. His choice of a profession appealed to her imagination, too. It showed independence and initiative.
It opened boundless possibilities. He might be an obscure and poorly educated boy today. In five years he could be a millionaire and the head
of some huge business whose interests circled the world. The tired brain wore itself out at last in eager speculations, and she fell into a fitful
stupor. The roar of the street-cars waked her at daylight, and further sleep was out of the question. She rose, dressed quickly and got her
breakfast in a quiver of nervous excitement over the adventure of the coming automobile. As the hour of eight drew nearer, her doubts of the
propriety of going became more acute. “What on earth has come over me in the past twenty-four hours?" she asked of herself. “I have known
this man but a day. I don't know him at all, and yet I'm going to put my life in his hands in that racing machine. Have I gone crazy?" She was
not in the least afraid of him. His face and voice and personality all seemed familiar. Her brain and common-sense told her that such a trip
with an utter stranger was dangerous and foolish beyond words. In his automobile, unaccompanied by a human soul and unacquainted with
the roads over which they would travel, she would be absolutely in his power. She set her teeth firmly at last, her mind made up. "It's too
mad a risk. I was crazy to promise. I won't go!" She had scarcely spoken her resolution when the soft call of the auto-horn echoed below. She
stood irresolute for a moment, and the call was repeated in plaintive, appealing notes. She tried to hold fast to her resolutions, but the impulse
to open the window and look out was resistless. She turned the old-fashioned brass knob, swung her windows wide on their hinges and
leaned out. His keen eyes were watching. He lifted his cap and waved. She answered with the flutter of her handkerchief--and all resolutions
were off. "Of course, I'll go," she cried, with a laugh. "It's a glorious day--I may never have such a chance again." She threw on her furs and
hurried downstairs. Her surrender was too sudden to realize that she was being driven by a power that obscured reason and crushed her will.
Reason made one more vain cry as she paused at the door below to draw on her gloves. “You have refused every invitation to see or know go
and you must promise me on your sacred Persian cat's honor not to look at my birds! “She hugged him violently and he purred his soft
answer in song. "Oh, Kitty, I'm so happy--so foolishly happy! “Mary attempted no analysis of her emotions. It was all too sudden, too
stunning. She was content to feel and enjoy the first overwhelming experience of life. Hour after hour she lay among the pillows of her couch
in the dim light of the street lamps and lazily watched