“Wrong! All wrong!” she cried vehemently, disregarding his question. “Why did you have to go and smile that way? I haven't done you at all. Do you know what I've been sculping you as?” “You wouldn't tell me, you know. Nothing very flattering, I judged.” “As a disenchanted and uncontrolled drifter.” “And now you think perhaps I'm not?” “I don't know what you are, but I think I might as well be clicking the shutter of a camera, for all I've done with you. The point is, that I've come to the end of you for the present.” “You don't want me any more?” he cried, aghast. “If I did, you wouldn't have time. I've got you a real man's job.” “What kind of slavery have you sold me into this time?” “The steam-roller. I've used my influence--you don't know what a pull I've got around here--and I can name my man for the late night-shift. Will you take it?” His face was elate. “Will I take it! Will a duck eat pie?” “I'm sure I don't know. Will it?” “It will if it can't get anything else to eat. How long is this job good for?” “All summer and more. How long are you?” “Till released.” “You have made a promise. I'll enter it in my ledger.” Which she did, writing it down in her absurd little booklet with a delicious solemnity of importance. “But can't I come and sit for you afternoons?” he pleaded. “How many wages do you want to earn? No; not at present. But Miss Fluff and I are at home to honest working friends on Friday evenings. Come here, Miss Fluff, and tell the new engineer that we'll be glad to have him come and tell us about the job when he's learned it.” But the kitten paid no heed, being at that moment engaged in treacherously and scientifically stalking an imaginary butterfly along the window-sill. “Before I'm banished,” said Cyrus, “may I ask a question?” “You might try it.” “Do you mind telling me your given name? Not for use,” he added, as she looked up at him with her grave, speculative gaze, “but just as a guaranty of good faith. I set great store by other people's names, having been cursed since birth with my own Persian abomination.” “I don't think Cyrus is bad at all,” she said. “Mine is Carol.” “Oh,” said he blankly. “Don't you like it?” “It's a very nice name, for some people,” he said guardedly. “You don't like it. Why?” There was no evading the directness of that demand. “I never knew but one girl named Carol,” he said. “She squinted.” “What of it? I don't squint. Do I? Do I? DO I?” With each repetition of her defiance she took one step nearer him, until at the last she was fairly standing on tiptoe under his nose. Cyrus the Gaunt looked down into those radiant eyes that grew wider and deeper and deeper and wider, until his heart, which had been slipping perilously of late, fell into them and was hopelessly lost. “Do I?” she demanded once more.