"The people will be here presently," Medora Phillips said, rather shortly. Surely this young man was taking his own tone. It was not quite the tone usually taken by college boys on their first call. Her position and her imposing surroundings--yes, her kindliness in noticing him at all--might surely save her from informalities that almost shaped into impertinences. Yet, on the other hand, nothing bored one more than a young man who openly showed himself intimidated. What was there behind this one? More than she had thought? Well, if so, none the worse. Time might tell. "So Miss Leffingwell plays?" He flared out his blue-white smile. "Let me learn my lesson page by page." "Yes, she plays," returned Medora Phillips briefly. "Guess what," she continued presently, half placated. They were again side by side on a sofa, each with an elbow on its back and the elbows near together. Nor was Medora Phillips, though plump, at all the graceless, dumpy little body she sometimes taxed herself with being. "What? Oh, piano, I suppose." "Piano!" "What's wrong?" "The piano is common: it's assumed." "Oh, she performs on something unusual? Xylophone?" "Be serious." "Trombone? I've seen wonders done on that in a 'lady orchestra'." "Don't be grotesque." She drew her dark eyebrows into protest. "What a sight!--a delicate young girl playing a trombone!" "Well, then,--a harp. That's sometimes a pleasant sight." "A harp needs an express wagon. Though of course it is pretty for the arms." "Arms? Let me see. The violin?" "Of course. And that's probably the very first thing you thought of. Why not have mentioned it?" "I suppose I've been taught the duty of making conversation." "The duty? Not the pleasure?" "That remains to be...." He paused. "So she has arms," he pretended to muse. "I confess I hadn't quite noticed." "She passed you a cup of tea, didn't she?" "Oh, surely. And a sandwich. And another. And a slice of layer cake, with a fork. And another cup of tea. And a macaroon or two----" "Am I a glutton?" "Am I? Some of all that provender was for me, as I recall." They were still side by side on the sofa. Both were cross--kneed, and the tip of her russet boot almost grazed that of his Oxford tie. He did not notice: he was already arranging the first paragraph of a letter to a friend in Winnebago, Wisconsin. "Dear Arthur: I called,--as I said I was going to. She is a scrapper. She goes at you hammer and tongs--pretending to quarrel as a means of entertaining you..." Medora Phillips removed her elbow from the back of the sofa, and began to prod up her cushions. "How about your work?" she asked. "What are you doing?" He came back. "Oh, I'm boning. Some things still to make up. I'm digging in the poetry of Gower--the 'moral Gower'." "Well, I see no reason why poetry shouldn't be moral. Has he been publishing anything lately that I ought to see?" "Not--lately." "I presume I can look into some of his older things."