Cis Adair had never hesitated to take anything that she wanted, nor, if it did not come after her, to go out after it. She had never wanted anything that was forbidden by the highest, nor the lower laws, but she invariably reached out after what she wanted. Now she glanced down at her shoes, which were shapely, fine as to leather, and which she decided were enough in need of polishing to warrant her treating them to it. She entered the attractive shop. The customers happened at that moment to be all men, but Cis had no shyness with men; she was nearer to shy with women. She came in without embarrassment, though every eye turned on her. The young man who had innocently trolled her hither at once got upon his feet; the other waiting customer did not move. “This is the most comfortable chair,” he said, indicating the one which he had just vacated for Cis. “Please take it; I’ll sit here.” He dropped into the chair next beyond his former one, which Cis took with a hearty “Thank you,” and a bright smile. His voice was quite beautiful, soft, rich, mellow, caressing, like a musical cadence, as he spoke these few words. “I never saw a bootblacking place like this,” Cis commented. “No. There can’t be many as nice. There’s one in Chicago that--well, we won’t say it is better, because we ought to be loyal to our own city, but it’s by way of peachiness,” said the young man, and his smile was as gay and bright as Cis’s own, and it revealed two dimples to her one. “I don’t have to be loyal to Beaconhite,” said Cis. “I’m a stranger, staying in this hotel, but I don’t mind sticking up for its bootblack.” “I fancy you’d be good at sticking up for anything that you felt belonged to you,” said the young man, and Cis suddenly perceived that he was not as young a man as she had at first thought him. His brilliant coloring, his grace and charm gave him the effect of greater youth than was his. Cis decided that he was well on in his twenties, if not just beyond them, and this somewhat checked her readiness to take him on in the capacity of good fellowship. Yet this was silly, she told herself; a good fellow was one at any age. What did it matter if this one were anywhere from five to ten years her senior? “You aren’t a Beaconhitette then?” he went on. “That’s hard luck. Now I am. I wasn’t always; came here last year, in fact, but I’m living here, and may go on living here, till I cease living altogether. You’re a jolly girl; you ought to stay.” His eyes were keen on Cis’s face, handsome eyes, softly blue, somewhat veiled by dark lashes, yet seeing eyes that could be keen as they now were, studying this singular girl who was so ready to talk, yet did not strike him as bold, but rather as maidenly. “Boyish sort, I think, but you never can be sure of them at first,” thought the man.