"It is very kind of you to take so much trouble," she said in a voice as sweet as singing. "I was so disappointed when you had to go away so early from the Amberleys' last night." She did not say the conventional thing about how much his poems had meant to her. Girls that he met--and they were not many--nearly always did, and he always disliked it. Such things meant nothing when they came as part of ordinary greetings. They jarred upon the poet's sensitive taste and he was pleased and interested to find that this girl said nothing of the sort. "Well, here's the book," he said, putting it down upon Rita's table. "And I've written in it as you asked. Do you collect autographs then?" She shook her head. "Oh, dear me no," she answered. "I think it's silly to collect anything that isn't beautiful. But, in a book one values, and with which one has been happy, the author's autograph seems to add to the book's personality. But I hate crazes. There are lots of girls that wait outside stage doors to make popular actors write in their books. Did you know that, Mr. Lothian?" "No, I didn't! Little donkeys! Hard lines on the actors. Even I get a few albums now and then, and it's a fearful nuisance. I put off writing in them and they lie about my study until they get quite a battered and dissipated look." "And then?" "Oh, I write in them. It would be impolite not to, you know. I have an invaluable formula. I write, 'Dear Madam, I am very sorry to say that I cannot accede to your kind request for an autograph. The practice is one with which I am not in sympathy. Yours very truly, Gilbert Lothian!'" "That's splendid, Mr. Lothian, better than sending a telegram, as some one did the other day to an importunate girl. They were talking about it last night at the Amberleys' after you left. I suppose that's really what gave me courage to send 'Surgit Amari' by Mr. Dickson Ingworth. Mr. and Mrs. Toftrees said that they always write passages from their novels when they are asked." "Perhaps that's a good plan," Lothian answered, listening to the "viols in her voice" and not much interested in the minor advertising arts of the Toftrees. What rare maiden was this with whom he was chatting? What had made him come to see her after all?--a mere whim doubtless--but was he not about to reap a very delightful harvest? For he was conscious of immense pleasure as he stood there talking to her, and there was excitement mingled with the pleasure. It was as though he was advancing upon a landscape, and at every step something fresh and interesting came into view. "I _did_ so dislike Mr. Toftrees and his wife," Rita said with a mischievous little gleam in her eyes. "Did you?" he asked in surprise. "They seemed very pleasant people I thought." "I expect that was because you thought nothing whatever about them, Mr. Lothian," she replied.