Margaret, having become absorbed in her book, looked up with saddened eyes from her literary draft of wormwood and tea, with the beginning of beautifully creased brows, to note the entrance of some lusty flesh and blood. Less in accord in mood and thought than were these, for the instant, never existed two people on the face of the earth, earnest lovers though they were and of about the same quality of thought and being. Something had to happen. "Why weep ye by the tide, Ladye?" began Bryant, glancing at the face of his sweetheart, and from that to the book she had laid aside. As she did not reply immediately, he continued, taking up the volume: "Is it The Han't that Walks or The Browning of the Overdone Biscuit that has lowered your spirits?" "I don't know what you are talking about," she said. "Neither do I," said he. There they were, he, overcoat still on and hat in hand, and she sitting there and looking up at him but still enwrapped in a more or less emotional feverishness contracted from the volume in his hand. Any purely objective onlooker would have required no announcement of the approaching "circus." The girl made an effort to recover command of herself. "Leave your hat and overcoat with the maid," she said, "and come and sit here in the window and look at the lake, while I read to you the beautiful ending of the story I have just finished." "I will stay," Bryant declared; "I was going to ask you to go with me to the park and idle among the chrysanthemums, but this will be better." And he seated himself near the window. "May I be allowed to look at you, instead of following your advice to the letter and keeping my eyes upon the cold, gray lake water outside?" he continued. "No matter what I hear, I shall be content if I can see you." Miss Selwyn flushed a little, but laughed good-humoredly. Here the purely objective looker-on afore-mentioned might murmur over the foolhardiness of man when he meets, unawares and all uncomprehendingly, one of the bewildering moods of an impressionable sweetheart. The contented male creature rushed blindly to his fate. "Before you begin, dear, tell me; tell me it is not Tolstoi or Ibsen you are going to read, nor yet George Meredith or Sarah Grand!" At the last reference Miss Selwyn's eyes began to flash dangerously. "You know I detest her!" she exclaimed. "Do you refer to all four of the writers I mentioned as of the feminine gender?" inquired Bryant with an appearance of fervid interest. The fool was actually enjoying it all. Seeing that her lover was only chaffing, Margaret made a brave effort, settled herself in her chair and found the place in her book. "Before you begin--I beg your pardon," said Bryant deferentially, "but let me say that I was up late last night, and if I can't keep awake under the spell of your voice, don't blame me. Wake me up at the catastrophe, when the distant door slams or somebody breaks a teacup."