A Woman Named Smith

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Excerpt: ...courier." His master patted him affectionately. "Come, Miss Smith. By the way, that isn't your real name, though. Your name is Woman-in-the-Woods. Mine is-" "Fortunatus." He raised his brows. "I was about to say 'Man-who-is-Hungry, '" he finished, pleasantly. "I once knew an Indian named Tail-feathers-going-over-the-Hill. It taught me the value of being explicit as to one's name. Here, you shall have the cup, and I'll drink out of the bottle. Some of these fine days, Woman-in-the-Woods, I shall take you on a jaunt with me and Boris." "It sounds promising, " I admitted, cautiously. "It is more. You shall learn all the fine points of out-of-door housekeeping.-Drink your wine, Woman-in-the-Woods. You were pale, very pale, when I came upon you. I was afraid something had been troubling you." "Something troubles everybody." "Oh, bromidic Miss Smith!-Drink your wine, please. And do not look doubtfully upon that sandwich. My man knows how to build them." His man did. The sandwich was manna. The wine evidently came from heaven. "Now you have a color. I say, is Morenas going to do you, too?" "Good gracious, no! But he has sketched Alicia a dozen times at least." "And me, " said Mr. Jelnik, gloomily. "There's no evading the brute. I turn like a weathercock, and there he is, with corrugated brow and slitted eyes, studying me! And the baleful eye of The Author also pursues me. Between them, I feel skinned." "Mr. Morenas says you are a rare but quite perfect type, " I told him, mischievously. The young man shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. "Am I a type, Woman-in-the-Woods?" he asked. "Indeed, you are absolutely different from anybody else." And then, terrified, I turned red. "Oh, I know! You didn't mean it either as a brick-bat or a bouquet, merely the truth as you see it. You are transparently truthful, fundamentally truthful, and at the same time the American business woman! You can't understand how that intrigues me!" And then, quite simply...