The young man smiled grimly, and pulling out his watch pried back the lid and turned it to her so that she could see a photograph inside.The face in the watch was that of a young girl in the dress of a fashion of several years ago.It was a lovely, frank face, looking out of the picture into the world kindly and questioningly, and without fear.
``Was I once like that?'' she said, lightly.``Well, go on.''
``Well,'' he said, with a little sigh of relief, ``I became greatly interested in Miss Alice Langham, and in her comings out and goings in, and in her gowns.Thanks to our having a press in the States that makes a specialty of personalities, I was able to follow you pretty closely, for, wherever I go, I have my papers sent after me.I can get along without a compass or a medicine-chest, but I can't do without the newspapers and the magazines.
There was a time when I thought you were going to marry that Austrian chap, and I didn't approve of that.I knew things about him in Vienna.And then I read of your engagement to others--well--several others; some of them I thought worthy, and others not.Once I even thought of writing you about it, and once I saw you in Paris.You were passing on a coach.The man with me told me it was you, and I wanted to follow the coach in a fiacre, but he said he knew at what hotel you were stopping, and so I let you go, but you were not at that hotel, or at any other--at least, I couldn't find you.''
``What would you have done--?'' asked Miss Langham.``Never mind,'' she interrupted, ``go on.''
``Well, that's all,'' said Clay, smiling.``That's all, at least, that concerns you.That is the romance of this poor young man.''
``But not the only one,'' she said, for the sake of saying something.
``Perhaps not,'' answered Clay, ``but the only one that counts.
I always knew I was going to meet you some day.And now I have met you.''
``Well, and now that you have met me,'' said Miss Langham, looking at him in some amusement, ``are you sorry?''