"Uh huh. Revolutionary, I believe. The night wind is a little raw." He moved across the room and closed the jalousies, and thus cut off the night wind and also the west view from the street. He glanced at the heavy curtains parted over his front windows, with a keen desire to swing them together. Some fragment of his mind continued the surface conversation with Cissie. "Is it post-Revolutionary or pre-Revolutionary?" she asked with a preoccupied air. "Post, I believe. No, pre. I always meant to examine closely." "To have such things would almost teach one history," Cissie said. "Yeah; very nice." Peter had decided that the girl was in direct line with the left front window and an opening between the trees to the street. The girl's eyes followed his. "Are those curtains velour, Peter?" "I--I believe so," agreed the man, unhappily. "I--I wonder how they look spread." Peter seized on this flimsy excuse with a wave of relief and thankfulness to Cissie. He had to restrain himself as he strode across the room and swung together the two halves of the somber curtains in order to preserve an appearance of an exhibit. His fingers were so nervous that he bungled a moment at the heavy cords, but finally the two draperies swung together, loosing a little cloud of dust. He drew together a small aperture where the hangings stood apart, and then turned away in sincere relief. Cissie's own interest in historic furniture and textiles came to an abrupt conclusion. She gave a deep sigh and settled back into her chair. She sat looking at Peter seriously, almost distressfully, as he came toward her. With the closing of the curtains and the establishment of a real privacy Peter became aware once again of the sweetness and charm Cissie always held for him. He still wondered what had brought her, but he was no longer uneasy. "Perhaps I'd better build a fire," he suggested, quite willing now to make her visit seem not unusual. "Oh, no,"--she spoke with polite haste,--"I'm just going to stay a minute. I don't know what you'll think of me." She looked intently at him. "I think it lovely of you to come." He was disgusted with the triteness of this remark, but he could think of nothing else. "I don't know," demurred the octoroon, with her faint doubtful smile. "Persons don't welcome beggars very cordially." "If all beggars were so charming--" Apparently he couldn't escape banalities. But Cissie interrupted whatever speech he meant to make, with a return of her almost painful seriousness. "I really came to ask you to help me, Peter." "Then your need has brought me a pleasure, at least." Some impulse kept the secretary making those foolish complimentary speeches which keep a conversation empty and insincere. "Oh, Peter, I didn't come here for you to talk like that! Will you do what I want?" "What do you want, Cissie?" he asked, sobered by her voice and manner. "I want you to help me, Peter."