“No, please not. I had rather think of you as the student working for the day.” He hesitated—then, “Very well. Good-night.” “Good-night.” He retraced his steps slowly. The memory of her attitude and her words puzzled him. “More like a boy,” he concluded, which if you think it out was a very fine form of conceit. His thoughts wandered from his work, and he bit his pen for a long, long while. His eyes rested unseeingly on the black patch which was the window. “More like a boy—much more.” He nodded to convince himself. After all, the friendship of a boy who is really a girl is very pleasant. Never once did it cross his mind how entirely negligible was the physical side of his nature. A man whose brain works with febrile intensity night and day, and whose earnings are scarcely sufficient to buy the meanest fare, knows little or nothing of passionate callings. Unlike your idle, over-fed fellow whose intellect performs no greater task than finding excuses for bodily indulgence, the student’s sensuality lies in words and colour. His worst vice is the prostitution of an artistic standard. III It was the neuter quality in Wynne Rendall which made possible the all-hour intimacy which came to exist between Eve and himself. She would come to his rooms, indifferent to time and convention, and stay far into the night. Sometimes they conversed little, and then, while he worked or wandered about in a seemingly aimless fashion, seeking some cherished but elusive word, she would read, curled up in the age-worn chair. When the talking mood possessed him she would lay her book aside and contribute endorsement or censure to his ideas. In this respect her courage was boundless, for she never hesitated to dispute with him when she felt he was at fault. He would fight for his mental holdings to the last breath of argument, then of a sudden swing round and say: “Yes, I know you are right—but how do you know?” His extraordinary belief in himself filled her with a queer mixture of distress and admiration, but the distress was outweighed by the admiration and the joy she took in their brain to brain fencing or accord. Their talks, although embracing nearly every subject under the sun, were, as a rule, impersonal, or rather impersonal in so far as their relations to one another was concerned. In common with many folk, Wynne thought more highly of his lesser deeds than of his greater, and vaunted them enthusiastically. He was inordinately proud of his truculence and acerbity to men who were more successful than himself, and took pleasure in recounting the fine-edged verbal tools he had employed against them. He was mortally offended when Eve told him frankly the attitude was unworthy and easily misconstrued. “They only think you are envious,” she said. “I envious of them? Good God!”