"Why, how d’you do, Blanchard?" she said. "I haven’t seen you here for a long time. What has happened? Have you finished the library yet?" "Oh, no, not quite. I’ve still a few more shelves to do, but I’ve been studying psychology on the side." She looked at him with an indulgence that was new to him. "In petticoats, I presume, then?" He shrugged his shoulders. "No, I’ve been studying a man," he said. "What are you doing?" She overlooked the purport of his question and answered lightly, "Oh, only looking up some statistics for father. I’ve been coming here quite often, lately, but I’m almost finished, now. Is there anything in the world duller than a statistic? I always think of the man who went for information to a statistician at Washington and was asked, ’What d’you want to prove?’" "How is your father getting on with the book?" Clytie grew a little more serious. "Why, father’s queer lately. I can’t understand him at all. He’s taken up with some spiritualists, and I’m rather worried about it." "He’s talked to me about them. But I should hardly think you’d be surprised at it. You’re as much interested in palmistry as he is in the spooks, aren’t you?" Clytie flashed a glance at him. "Didn’t you know that Mr. Granthope had given up palmistry?" Cayley smiled and smoothed his pointed beard. "Oh, yes. I’ve heard considerable about it. Nobody seems to understand it but me. Very clever of him, I think." "What d’you mean?" Clytie was instantly upon the defense. "I like his system. It’s subtle." "His system?" "Yes. You don’t mean to say you still think he’s sincere, do you?" "I don’t think it’s necessary to discuss Mr. Granthope," said Clytie carelessly. "Of course I do believe he’s sincere, or I wouldn’t call myself a friend of his. He has given up a good paying business because he was sick of that way of earning a living." "And also in order to make more money by quitting." "How?" "By marrying you." She winced. "Blanchard," she said, "if you weren’t an old friend, I couldn’t forgive you that. But because you are, I can’t permit you to think it." "It was because we are old friends that I permitted myself to speak so plainly. You’ll count it, I suppose, merely as jealousy. But I hate to see you taken in so easily." Clytie looked up at him calmly, folding her hands in her lap. "Now, Blanchard, please tell me exactly what you mean, without any more insinuations." "Why, Granthope has been for two months trying to marry you. He’s after your money." "Thank you for the implied compliment," she retorted dryly. "Oh, well, you know perfectly well what _I_ think of you, Cly. I was thinking of what I know of him, not what I know of you. He’s made a deliberate attempt to get you, and this reform business is only a part of the game." She smiled and turned away, as if she were so sure of Granthope that it was hardly worth her while even to defend him.