At the library door Celia stood, hand on knob. "Mr. Maxwell is here, Miss Gibbie. Will you see him?" "I will." Miss Gibbie leaned back in her chair, put her feet on the stool in front of it, and crossed her hands in her lap. "And bring in tea at once." "It is good of you to let me see you." John Maxwell bent over the beautiful hand held out to him, but the boyish banter of other days was gone. Before Miss Gibbie was no pretence, and his face was that of a man who no longer has time to waste or the will for wasting. "Not good at all. If you hadn't come I should have sent for you." She tilted the screen at a different angle. "Sit down, and sit where I can see you. But first put that table a little closer to me. Here's Celia with the tea." The table was moved and the large silver tray with its little silver legs was placed upon it, the lamp under the kettle lighted, and Celia waved out, and again Miss Gibbie leaned back. "What day did you get here?" she asked. "Time has such a somersault way of passing, one can't keep up with it. How long have you been here?" "Ten days. I came on the twenty-ninth, and this is the eighth of November." "When are you going away?" "I don't know." John crossed his right leg over his left, shifted his position and shaded his eyes with his hand. Miss Gibbie took up the tea-caddy. "Do you think you've accomplished great things by coming? Judging by your manner of late, not to mention your looks, you haven't been drunk with happiness since you reached this town of historic importance and modern inconsequence. But of course--" she tilted the spout of the kettle into the teapot--"my suggestion that you stay where you belong was a mere woman's, and you saw fit to ignore it. Men like to bring blessings on their head--and my friend John Maxwell is most verily a man." "You seem to forget it." He got up and began to walk backward and forward the length of the room. "I wonder if I am sometimes. When I see that round, red, moon-faced pig driving around town with Mary, taking long horseback rides with her, and going to see her whenever he pleases, I don't know how I keep from killing him. He isn't fit to be in the same town with her. I know the man, went to school with him. He's a cad and a coward and a big fat fool. He has some money-- that is, his father has--and a smearing of education, but he's coarse and common and not to be trusted. Van Orm was a gentleman at least, and if Mary wanted--" "Does Mary know as much of your friend Mr. Fielding as you do?" Miss Gibbie handed him a cup of tea, but he waved it back.