Eugene Walter was tall, lank, and mouse-haired. He had an Adam’s apple and blue eyes that twinkled behind horn-rimmed glasses. He seemed to have unlimited leisure. Matilda wondered when he wrote his books, but the mere fact that it had been said that he wrote them was glamorous enough. Mr. Walter was anything but an Apollo; but even the irresistible George Sand had had to make a choice between beauty and genius. There had been that lover of hers, Michel de Bourges. He must have been queer enough with his shrunken body and his unwieldy head several sizes too large for him. And yet in spite of Matilda’s willingness to overlook his lack of pulchritude, Mr. Walter continued to ignore her. The only person in the house who noticed Matilda was a Miss Slattery who taught English somewhere and she was acidly superior to everything but hot water and the Elizabethans. The week wore on. Fred was out every night. Matilda smelled whisky on his breath and once she surprised him amorously counting a roll of dirty greenbacks. Had he gambled and won? He apparently had. Matilda sighed. Fred, as usual, was making his dreams come true. It was Monday evening. Matilda and Fred were due to start back to Crittenden in the morning. They were sitting in the parlour. Enid was playing the piano, and Eugene Walter was hanging loosely over her. Matilda watched them narrowly and bitterly. That giggling little blonde was monopolizing the only male in the room worth talking to, while she, Matilda Gessler, the granddaughter of a certain not inconsiderable French coquette, was forced to sit moping beside a brother whose mind was busy with exploits which he meant to turn into cash or kisses. Why hadn’t Eugene Walter noticed her? God knows, it only needed one warm word or a bent look to make all her stifled vividness leap into flower. She could be ten times more arresting than that stupid flaxen-topped creature who used her gleaming teeth to make up for her lack of brains. What was the matter? And then a strip of iridescent silk slipping from a white shoulder made her divine the truth with devastating thoroughness. It was the clothes. She leaned forward, studying her rival from a purely sartorial angle. She _was_ effective in spite of her freckled skin and turned-up nose. The green gown emphasized the emerald lights in her eyes. Gold banded her hips, and a large cornelian made a splash of flame against her breast. Matilda looked down and fingered her own brown serge disgustedly. Why had she been so blind? She gritted her teeth. Then her hot rage cooled into a resolve. She wouldn’t let her French blood go to waste. She would warm it yet or know the reason why. There was a woman once who charmed a romantic doctor out of Venice by the velvet eccentricity of her attire. “I’m not going back to Crittenden,” announced Matilda with soft suddenness. “Gee!” he whistled. “What’s the big idea?” “I’m going to stay here and be an authoress.” “Like fun you are.”