'Is that the way you sit on the books sent in for review?' She sat down. 'Dear me! it's quite comfortable. You men like comfort, even the most self-sacrificing. But where is your fighting editor? It would be awkward if an aggrieved reader came in and mistook me for the editor, wouldn't it? It isn't safe for me to remain in this chair!' 'Oh yes, it is! We've tackled our aggrieved readers for to-day,' he assured her. She looked curiously round. 'Please pick up your pipe; it's going out. I don't mind smoke--indeed I don't. Even if I did, I should be prepared to pay the penalty of bearding an editor in his den.' Raphael resumed his pipe gratefully. 'I wonder, though, you don't set the place on fire,' Esther rattled on, 'with all this mass of inflammable matter about.' 'It is very dry, most of it,' he admitted, with a smile. 'Why don't you have a real fire? It must be quite cold sitting here all day. What's that great ugly picture over there?' 'That steamer? It's an advertisement.' 'Heavens! what a decoration! I should like to have the criticism of that picture. I've brought you those picture-galleries, you know: that's what I've come for.' 'Thank you; that's very good of you! I'll send it to the printers at once.' He took the roll, and placed it in a pigeon-hole without taking his eyes off her face. 'Why don't you throw that awful staring thing away?' she asked, contemplating the steamer with a morbid fascination; 'and sweep away the old papers, and have a few little water-colours hung up, and put a vase of flowers on your desk. I wish I had the control of the office for a week.' 'I wish you had,' he said gallantly. 'I can't find time to think of those things. I am sure you are brightening it up already.' The little blush on her cheek deepened. Compliment was unwonted with him; and, indeed, he spoke as he felt. The sight of her seated so strangely and unexpectedly in his own humdrum sanctum, the imaginary picture of her beautifying it and evolving harmony out of the chaos with artistic touches of her dainty hands, filled him with pleasant, tender thoughts such as he had scarce known before. The commonplace editorial chair seemed to have undergone consecration and poetic transformation. Surely the sunshine that streamed through the dusty window would for ever rest on it henceforwards. And yet the whole thing appeared fantastic and unreal. 'I hope you are speaking the truth,' replied Esther, with a little laugh. 'You need brightening, you old dry-as-dust philanthropist, sitting poring over stupid manuscripts when you ought to be in the country enjoying the sunshine.' She spoke in airy accents, with an under-current of astonishment at her attack of high spirits on an occasion she had designed to be harrowing.