A DAUGHTER OF TYRE "Monsieur voleur!" Jasmine looked at him again, as she had done the night before at the opera, standing quite confidentially close to him, her hand resting in his big palm like a pad of rose-leaves; while a delicate perfume greeted his senses.

Byng beamed down on her, mystified and eager, yet by no means impatient, since the situation was one wholly agreeable to him, and he had been called robber in his time with greater violence and with a different voice.

Now he merely shook his head in humorous protest, and gave her an indulgent look of inquiry.

Somehow he felt quite at home with her; while yet he was abashed by so much delicacy and beauty and bloom.
"Why, what else are you but a robber ?" she added, withdrawing her hand rather quickly from the too frank friendliness of his grasp.

"You ran off with my opera-cloak last night, and a very pretty and expensive one it was." "Expensive isn't the word," he rejoined; "it was unpurchasable." She preened herself a little at the phrase.