The soulful one ran his long, bony fingers through his mane of auburn hair, and assented with a pleased grunt. "There are few, Miss St. Clair," he said, "who have your fine discernment. It is almost ideal." "Yet it seems too bad," she went on, "that the world-wide appreciation of your artistic devotion should not take some tangible form. Dollars may be vulgar and sordid, as you say, but still, in our primitive era, they are our only expression of value. I have even heard it said," she went on, rapidly, "that the amount of wealth honestly acquired by any individual was, after all, only the measure of his usefulness to his race." "Miss St. Clair!" exclaimed the poet, deeply shocked; "do I understand that you are actually advising me to sell a poem?" "Far from it, Mr. Perkins," Elaine reassured him. "I was only thinking that by having your work printed in a volume, or perhaps in the pages of a magazine, you could reach a wider audience, and thus accomplish your ideal of uplifting the multitude." "I am pained," breathed the poet; "inexpressibly pained." "Then I am sorry," answered Elaine. "I was only trying to help." "To think," continued Mr. Perkins, bitterly, "of the soiled fingers of a labouring man, a printer, actually touching these fancies that even I hesitate to pen! Once I saw the fair white page of a book that had been through that painful experience. You never would have known it, my dear Miss St. Clair--it was actually filthy!" "I see," murmured Elaine, duly impressed, "but are there not more favourable conditions?" "I have thought there might be," returned the poet, after a significant silence, "indeed, I have prayed there might be. In some little nook among the pines, where the brook for ever sings and the petals of the apple blossoms glide away to fairyland upon its shining surface, while butterflies float lazily here and there, if reverent hands might put the flowering of my genius into a modest little book--I should be tempted, yes, sorely tempted." "Dear Mr. Perkins," cried Elaine, ecstatically clapping her hands, "how perfectly glorious that would be! To think how much sweetness and beauty would go into the book, if that were done!" "Additionally," corrected Mr. Perkins, with a slight flush. "Yes, of course I mean additionally. One could smell the apple blossoms through the printed page. Oh, Mr. Perkins, if I only had the means, how gladly would I devote my all to this wonderful, uplifting work!" The poet glanced around furtively, then drew closer to Elaine. "I may tell you," he murmured, "in strict confidence, something which my lips have never breathed before, with the assurance that it will be as though unsaid, may I not?" "Indeed you may!"