Past his time, indeed! As if he hadn't been working past his time every night since he came. She had grown mighty particular all of a sudden! "The presence of these engaging little Elzevirs is a terrible temptation to a second-hand bookseller, still I believe you can trust me with them alone." From the expression of her face he gathered that this remark was even more impertinent than the other. He had meant it to be. "I really think," said the lady, "that you had better go." "Just as you please; I shall only have to sit up two hours later to-morrow night." He walked to his place with his head thrown farther back and his chin thrust farther forward than ever. He began to sort and arrange his papers preparatory to his departure. It took him five minutes. At the end of the five minutes he was aware that Lucia had risen and was bidding him Good-night. "You were quite right," she was saying. "I _am_ tired, and I had better leave off. If you had rather stay and finish, please stay." At those words Mr. Rickman was filled with a monstrous and amazing courage. He made for the door, crossing without a tremor the whole length of the library. He reached the door before Miss Harden, and opened it. He returned her good-night with a hope that she would be rested in the morning. And as he went back to his solitary labour he smiled softly to himself, a smile of self-congratulation. He had meant her to go--and she had gone. Upstairs in her room overhead Lucia communed with her own face in the glass. "My private secretary?" The face in the glass looked dubious. "Of course I would rather have a gentleman for my private secretary. Some people would say he isn't a gentleman." (She had said it herself the other day.) The face in the glass smiled dimly, between two parted veils of hair. "What _is_ a gentleman?" The face in the glass suggested that this was indeed a subtle and a difficult question. "It was not his business if I chose to tire myself. Would it have been his business if he'd been a gentleman?" The face in the glass offered no opinion. "I think I like him best when he's impertinent. He is so _very_ funny, poor dear, when he tries to be polite." The face in the glass, framed by two white arms raising a column of hair, was suffused with rosy mirth. "I wonder what Horace really thinks of him?" The face, triumphantly crowned with its dark coil, looked grave. "He _is_ a gentleman. At least, he lied like one." By this time Lucia was in bed, and there was no face in the glass to dispute or corroborate that statement. CHAPTER XXIII The next morning he gave into her hands the manuscript of _Helen in Leuce_. It had arrived two or three days ago, packed by Spinks between his new shirts. She had expected to feel a little guilty as she received the familiar sheets; but as she glanced over them she saw that they were anything but familiar; what she had to deal with was a clean new draft.