He was on the whole a pleasant, shrewd, unaffected man of twenty-eight, when he was presented to Amber, and, on her acceptance of a pretty little imitation Italian enamel from him, he yielded to her influence. She remembered with pleasure (she thought) that he had only upon one occasion spoken of love in her presence. Her recollection was not at fault. Only once had he hinted at certain aspirations on his part, and then he and she had become good friends. He had submitted to her influence sufficiently far to promise her that he would cease to live a life of idle frugality. A course of practical literature was what she prescribed for him and he at once joined the Technical School just started by Mr. Owen Glen-dower Richmond. This was, she reflected, a great triumph for Platonic friendship, and yet Guy Overton was only at the other end of the room when Josephine had written that paper of hers in dispraise of this very sentiment! Amber was inclined to be impatient in thinking of her friend’s scarcely veiled sneers. And then she began to think if it might not be possible that her friend had in her mind her own case--the case of Josephine West and Ernest Clifton--rather than the cases of Amber Severn and Guy Overton, Amber Severn and Arthur Galmyn, Amber Severn and--yes, it was quite possible that the cynicism--if it was cynicism--in the “time study” was prompted by the real feeling of the writer in regard to her relations with Mr. Ernest Clifton. The reflection had its consolations; but Amber thought she loved her friend Josephine too dearly to be consoled at her expense. Though she herself was, she fancied, perfectly happy in experimentalising, so to speak, in the science of friendship she was too wise to assume that her friend would be equally well satisfied to attain such results as she, Amber, had achieved. She was led to ask herself if it was possible that Josephine was actually in love with Mr. Ernest Clifton. And then she went on to ask herself if it was possible that Mr. Ernest Clifton was in love with Josephine West. Without coming to a conclusion in her consideration of either question, she knew that if Josephine really loved that particular man, her views on the subject of Platonic friendship might be pretty much as she had defined them--precipitating the acid of cynicism at present held in solution in the series of phrases written down on the paper.