The question of X Y Z’s sex now became obtrusive. Was the plot specialist man or woman? The handwriting in the note seemed feminine and yet it might have been penned by a secretary. The use of _our_ and _we_ rather pointed to more than one person. Very likely this person who offered plots in so businesslike a fashion was a spectacled professor who had gone through all existing fiction, analyzing devices and making new combinations, and would prove an intolerable bore--a crank probably; possibly an old maid who had spent her life reading novels and was amusing herself in her old age by furnishing novelists with ideas. He smoked and pondered. He was persuaded that he had made an ass of himself in answering the advertisement and the sooner he was through with the business the better. He allowed himself an hour to walk to the Sorona, and set off rapidly. He followed the road to the hilltop and found the tea house undeniably there. The place certainly had a forsaken look. The veranda was littered with leaves, the doors and windows were closed, and no one was in sight. Depression settled on him as he noted the chairs and tables piled high in readiness for storing for the winter. He passed round to the western side of the house, and his heart gave a thump as he beheld a table drawn close to the veranda rail and set with a braver showing of napery, crystal and silver than he recalled from his few visits to the house in midsummer. A spirit lamp was just bringing the kettle to the boiling point: it puffed steam furiously. There were plates of sandwiches and cakes, cream and sugar, and cups--two cups! “Good afternoon, Mr. Farrington! If you’re quite ready let’s sit down.” He started, turned round and snatched off his hat. A girl had appeared out of nowhere. She greeted him with a quick nod, as though she had known him always--as though theirs was the most usual and conventional of meetings. Then she walked to the table and surveyed it musingly. “Oh, don’t trouble,” she said as he sprang forward to draw out her chair. “Let us be quite informal; and, besides, this is a business conference.” Nineteen, he guessed--twenty, perhaps; not a day more. She wore, well back from her face, with its brim turned up boyishly, an unadorned black velvet hat. Her hair was brown, and wisps of it had tumbled down about her ears; and her eyes--they, too, were brown--a golden brown which he had bestowed on his favorite heroine. They were meditative eyes--just such eyes as he might have expected to find in a girl who set up as a plot specialist. There was a dimple in her right cheek. When he had dimpled a girl in a story he bestowed dimples in pairs. Now he saw the superiority of the single dimple, which keeps the interested student’s heart dancing as he waits for its appearance. Altogether she was a wholesome and satisfying young person, who sent scampering all his preconceived ideas of X Y Z. “I’m so glad you were prompt! I always hate waiting for people,” she said.