"Not a minute before four o'clock." "That's a long time--now you've made me crazy to see you." "Don't talk nonsense. I must go back to work." "What are you doing?" he asked, to detain her. "Dusting and polishing. Molly did the sweeping and is cleaning windows now." "What have you got on?" "How silly you are!" "No one knows that better than I. But I want to have a picture of you to look at." "I've got on an old white skirt and an old shirt waist, both dirty, and a pair of tennis shoes that were white once but are gray now, where they aren't black. And I've got a pink chiffon rag tied round my hair." "Pink is wonderful when you wear it." "I look a fright. And my face is streaked--and my arms." "Oh, you've got your sleeves rolled up. That's an important detail." "You're making fun of me." "No, I'm thinking of your arms. They are--ravishing." "That's quite enough. Good-by." And she rang off. He was used to her treating compliment and flattery from him in that fashion. He could not--or was it would not?--understand why. He had learned that she was not at all the indifferent and unaware person in the matter of her physical charms he had at first fancied her. On the contrary, she had more than her share of physical vanity--not more than was her right, in view of her charms, but more than she could carry off well. With many a secret smile he had observed that she thought herself perfect physically. This did not repel him; it never does repel a man--when and so long as he is under the enchantment of the charms the woman more or less exaggerates. But, while he had often seen women with inordinate physical vanity, so often that he had come to regarding it as an essential part of feminine character, never before had he seen one so content with her own good opinion of herself that she was indifferent to appreciation from others. He did not go back to the office after lunch. Several important matters were coming up; if he got within reach they might conspire to make it impossible for him to be with her on time. If his partners, his clients knew! He the important man of affairs kneeling at the feet of a nobody!--and why? Chiefly because he was unable to convince her that he amounted to anything. His folly nauseated him. He sat in a corner in the dining room of the Lawyers' Club and drank one whisky and soda after another and brooded over his follies and his unhappiness, muttering monotonously from time to time: "No wonder she makes a fool of me. I invite it, I beg for it, damned idiot that I am!" By three o'clock he had drunk enough liquor to have dispatched the average man for several days. It had produced no effect upon him beyond possibly a slight aggravation of his moodiness.