Page:In a Steamer Chair and Other Stories.djvu/85

Rh conduct or bearing that would induce you to think that I did not believe in honesty?"

"No, I can't say I have. Still, honesty is such a rare quality that a person naturally is surprised when one comes unexpectedly upon it."

George Morris found the forenoon rather tedious and lonesome. He sat in the smoking room, and once or twice he ventured near where Miss Earle sat engrossed in her book, in the hope that the volume might have been put aside for the time, and that he would have some excuse for sitting down and talking with her. Once, as he passed, she looked up with a bright smile and nodded to him.

"Nearly through?" he asked dolefully.

"With 'The Siege of London'?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Oh, I am through that long ago, and have begun another story."

"Now, that is not according to contract," claimed Morris. "The contract was that, when you got through with 'The Siege of London,' you were to let me talk with you, and that you were to tell me the story."

"That was not my interpretation of it. Our bargain, as I understood it, was that I was to have this forenoon to myself, and that I was to use the