The Tracer of Lost Persons | Page 7

looked at
him absently, glanced at what she had written, flushed a little, rubbed
out the "she is probably," wondering why a moment's mental
wandering should have committed her to absurdity.
"Married?" she asked with emphasis.
"No," he replied, startled; then, vexed, "I beg your pardon--you mean to

ask if she is married!"
"Oh, I didn't mean you, Mr. Gatewood; it's the next question, you
see"--she held out the blank toward him. "Is the person you are looking
for married?"
"Oh, no; she isn't married, either--at least--trust--not--because if she is I
don't want to find her!" he ended, entangled in an explanation which
threatened to involve him deeper than he desired. And, looking up, he
saw the beautiful brown eyes regarding him steadily. They reverted to
the paper at once, and the white fingers sent the pencil flying.
"He trusts that she is unmarried, but if she is (underlined) married he
doesn't want to find her," she wrote.
"That," she explained, "goes under the head of 'General Remarks' at the
bottom of the page"--she held it out, pointing with her pencil. He
nodded, staring at her slender hand.
"Age?" she continued, setting the pad firmly on her rounded, yielding
knee and looking up at him.
"Age? Well, I--as a matter of fact, I could only venture a surmise. You
know," he said earnestly, "how difficult it is to guess ages, don't you,
Miss Southerland?"
"How old do you think she is? Could you not hazard a guess--judging,
say, from her appearance?"
"I have no data--no experience to guide me." He was becoming
involved again. "Would you, for practice, permit me first to guess your
age, Miss Southerland?"
"Why--yes--if you think that might help you to guess hers."
So he leaned back in his armchair and considered her a very long
time--having a respectable excuse to do so. Twenty times he forgot he
was looking at her for any purpose except that of disinterested delight,

and twenty times he remembered with a guilty wince that it was a
matter of business.
"Perhaps I had better tell you," she suggested, her color rising a little
under his scrutiny.
"Is it eighteen? Just her age!"
"Twenty-one, Mr. Gatewood--and you said you didn't know her age."
"I have just remembered that I thought it might be eighteen; but I dare
say I was shy three years in her case, too. You may put it down at
twenty-one."
For the slightest fraction of a second the brown eyes rested on his, the
pencil hovered in hesitation. Then the eyes fell, and the moving fingers
wrote.
"Did you write 'twenty-one'?" he inquired carelessly.
"I did not, Mr. Gatewood."
"What did you write?"
"I wrote: 'He doesn't appear to know much about her age.'"
"But I do know--"
"You said--" They looked at one another earnestly.
"The next question," she continued with composure, "is: 'Date and
place of birth?' Can you answer any part of that question?"
"I trust I may be able to--some day. . . . What are you writing?"
"I'm writing: 'He trusts he may be able to, some day.' Wasn't that what
you said?"
"Yes, I did say that. I--I'm not perfectly sure what I meant by it."

She passed to the next question:
"Height?"
"About five feet six," he said, fascinated gaze on her.
"Hair?"
"More gold than brown--full of--er--gleams--" She looked up quickly;
his eyes reverted to the window rather suddenly. He had been looking
at her hair.
"Complexion?" she continued after a shade of hesitation.
"It's a sort of delicious mixture--bisque, tinted with a pinkish
bloom--ivory and rose--" He was explaining volubly, when she began
to shake her head, timing each shake to his words.
"Really, Mr. Gatewood, I think you are hopelessly vague on that
point--unless you desire to convey the impression that she is speckled."
"Speckled!" he repeated, horrified. "Why, I am describing a woman
who is my ideal of beauty--"
But she had already gone to the next question:
"Teeth?"
"P-p-perfect p-p-pearls!" he stammered. The laughing red mouth closed
like a flower at dusk, veiling the sparkle of her teeth.
Was he trying to be impertinent? Was he deliberately describing her?
He did not look like that sort of man; yet why was he watching her so
closely, so curiously at every question? Why did he look at her teeth
when she laughed?
"Eyes?" Her own dared him to continue what, coincidence or not, was
plainly a description of herself.

"B-b-b--" He grew suddenly timorous, hesitating, pretending to a
perplexity which was really a healthy scare. For she was frowning.
"Curious I can't think of the color of her eyes," he said; "is--isn't it?"
She coldly inspected her pad and made a correction; but all she did was
to rub out a comma and put another in its place. Meanwhile, Gatewood,