"That's the loveliest thing I ever heard of anybody doing!" cried Eleanor, breathless with gratitude. "Does Papa Claude know?" "Of course he knows. We worked it out together. I am going to find him a small apartment, so he can be ready for you when you come. It shouldn't be later than November the first." Eleanor wore such a look as Joan of Arc must have worn when she first heard the heavenly voices. Her shapely bare arms hung limp at her sides, and her white face, with its contrasting black hair, shone like a delicate cameo against the darkness. Harold, leaning forward with elbows on his knees, kept lightly touching and retouching his mustache. "In the first act," he continued softly, "I've put you in the Red Cross Uniform--the little blue and white one, you know, that you used to break hearts in out at the camp hospital. In the second act you are to be in riding togs, smart in every detail, something very chic, that will show your figure to advantage; in the last act I want you exactly as you are this minute--this soft clingy gold gown, and the gold slippers, and your hair high and plain like that, with the band of dull gold around it. I wouldn't change an inch of you, not from your head to your blessed little feet!" As he talked Eleanor forgot him completely. She was busy visualizing the different costumes, even going so far as to see herself slipping through folds of crimson velvet to take insistent curtain calls. Already in imagination she was rich and famous, dispensing munificent bounty to the entire Martel family. Then a disturbing thought pricked her dream and brought her rudely back to the present. As long as her grandmother regarded her going to New York as a foolish whim, a passing craze, she might be wheedled into yielding; but at the first suggestion of a professional engagement, her opposition would become active and violent, Eleanor sighed helplessly and looked at Harold. "What shall I do if grandmother refuses to send me?" she asked desperately. "You can let me send you," he said quietly. "It's folly to keep up this pretense any longer, Eleanor. You love me, don't you?" "I--I like you," faltered Eleanor, "better than almost anybody. But I am never going to marry; I don't think I shall ever care for anybody--that way." He watched her with an amused practised glance. "We won't talk about it now," he said lightly. "We will talk instead of your career. You remember that night at Ran's when you recited for me? I can hear you now saying those lines: 'Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won I'll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay.' For days I was haunted by the beauty and subtlety of your voice, the unconscious grace of your poses, your little tricks of coquetry, and the play of your eyebrows." "Did you really see all that in me the first night?"