Channing smiled. "The standards of the world, fortunately, vary somewhat from the standards of rural Kentucky. Some of the greatest 'ladies' I have known happened to be on the stage, and not always in grand opera." He went on to speak of various singers and actors and painters and writers of his acquaintance, of studios and greenrooms, customs in European countries, famous friendships between royalty and artists; and she had her first glimpse of a world that made her own seem as barren and desolate as some desert isle. Certain racial inheritances awoke in her and clamored. Her mother's family had been people of culture and travel and wide social affiliations. It had not occurred to her before that her life was singularly empty. She would have said that her friends were legion. The horses, the dogs, the negroes, the humbler country folk of the neighborhood, the tenants on her mother's property--all accepted the Madam's youngest daughter as one of themselves, and loved her accordingly. But of intercourse with her own kind, she had none. Her mother, Philip, Professor Thorpe, even Jemima--regarded Jacqueline as a playful, happy, charming tomboy, whose sole duty in life was to amuse herself and them. Philip, indeed, was beginning to observe the deeper instincts stirring in her; but Charming was the first of her equals to treat her quite as an equal, and the fact that she looked upon him as a dazzlingly superior order of being made his recognition of her as a kindred spirit a rather heady thing. Jacqueline was capable, as only seventeen may be, of a vast and uncritical hero-worship, that gave with both hands and never tired of giving. "Oh!" she said at last, with a long sigh. "Listening to you is just like reading the most exciting book, all about crowned heads, and far countries, and society, and things like that. Jemmy ought to hear you. I wonder why Professor Jim has never sent us any of your novels? He is always giving us books." "I told you," remarked Charming, "that my family did not appreciate me." He was not quite sure whether it was a disappointment or a relief to realize that this wide-eyed girl had not, after all, read his books. "Will you send me some?" she asked eagerly. "I will not," he said decidedly. "But if you care for verse--" he hesitated. "What? You write poetry, too?" Jacqueline clasped her hands. "Recite some for me at once!" He chose one of his less erotic sonnets, and spoke it well and simply, with the diffidence which occasionally besets the most confident of authors with regard to their own performances. Jacqueline listened dreamily. At last she said, "That's very musical. I'd like to sing it." The comment pleased him exceedingly, musical phrases being his specialty. "You shall," he said. "I'll set it to music for you." Her eyes opened wide. "You don't mean to say you're a composer as well as an author and a poet, Mr. Charming? That's _too_ much! It isn't fair."