“I find,” he said, “they are not essential. I was about to discard them in any event.” He paused. “It was clear to me,” he said, simply, “that a scholarly appearance was not necessary to me in my new walk of life.” He said this so casually, with such good faith and simplicity, that Carmel saw how little he realized the absurdity of it. It demonstrated something of the straightforwardness of the man, something simple and childlike in him.... Carmel turned back to her desk with a warmer feeling of friendship toward Evan. There was something engaging, appealing about the artificially dried, cloistered, egoistic man. “At any rate,” she said, presently, again aware of his eyes, “you seem perfectly able to stare at me, glasses or no glasses.” “I was staring at you,” he admitted, with disconcerting directness. “Well, of all things!... Why?” “Because,” he said, “you present an interesting problem.” “Indeed!... What problem, if you please?” There was no trace of self-consciousness in his answer. It was direct, not made with humorous intent, nor as a man of the world might have uttered similar words. It issued from profound depths of ignorance of life and of the customs and habits of life. “I find,” he said, “that I think about you a great deal. Yes.... I find my thoughts taken up with you at most inopportune moments. I am even able to visualize you. Very queer. Only last evening, when I should have been otherwise occupied, I suddenly aroused myself to find I had been giving you minute consideration for half an hour. I may even say that I derived a certain pleasure from the exercise. It was startling, if I may use so strong a word. Doubtless there is some cause for such a mental phenomenon.... Will you believe me, Miss Lee, I was perfectly able to see you as if you were in the room with me. I watched you move about. I could see the changing expressions upon your face.... And when I realized how I was frittering away my time, and set about resolutely to take up the business in hand, I could do so only with the greatest difficulty. Actually, I did so with regret, and thereafter found concentration extremely difficult.... Therefore I have been sitting here, studying you with the utmost care to discover, if I can, the reason for these things.” “And have you discovered it?” Carmel asked, a trifle breathlessly. He shook his head. “Undoubtedly you are pleasing to the eye,” he said, “but I must have encountered other people who are equally pleasing. I must confess to being at a loss for an answer.”