Her shoes dry, she began to move restlessly about the room. Now, it is a curious fact that Jane had never expressed and never felt any curiosity about the book Ormsby was writing, though she knew that she was furnishing the material for the heroine. In spite of herself, almost unconsciously, indeed, at first, she had become so absorbed in the writer that the book became of secondary importance. Today, however, his absence made everything that was intimately associated with him of interest to her, since they served, in a way, as a substitute for him. She picked up his pipe and held it caressingly against her cheek, and then, with a guilty start, set it down again. She dropped her head on an open book he had evidently been reading, and her eyes were dewy when she raised it. She came upon, finally, the bundle of papers he had tossed contemptuously on the table the night before, and recognized it as the manuscript upon which he had been working. She regarded it thoughtfully for a while and then her face brightened. “Why, how stupid of me!” she exclaimed, aloud, and, going back to his chair, she seated herself in it once more and smoothed out the sheets. “He can’t possibly object to my reading it,” she reasoned, “since I’m in it, and it’s soon to be public property.” She stared at the title. “‘A Woman,’” she read aloud--“that’s me, I suppose. Why”--with an odd, breathless little laugh--“it will be exactly like seeing for the first time a portrait done of yourself by some great painter--one of those artists who pay more attention to the soul than to the hair or the mouth or the eyes. I’ll see myself as somebody else sees me. It’s--it’s going to be terribly exciting.” Yet, in spite of the curiosity she professed, Jane did not begin at once to read. Instead, she dropped the manuscript in her lap and stared for a while into the fire, her chin propped on her hand. Her thoughts ran on something like this: “You’ve never had such an awfully good time, Jane De Mille, though you’ve put up what Billie would call a pretty stiff bluff. You’ve never had anybody to really and truly care for you, unless it be Uncle Jacob, though plenty of people have admired you for what good looks you have or because you didn’t bore them. But if you should _discover_ that somebody loved you for yourself alone, thought you a little better, perhaps, than you really are, you know--why, it’s just possible----” A catch in her breath put a stop to her reflections, and she unrolled the manuscript and began to read.