"What is it this time?" she demanded, pausing in the doorway, but making no attempt to smile. Then, the way he grinned, the boyish impulsiveness which made him seem out of place in a briskly efficient magazine office at ten in the morning, caused her face to soften. It was insane, of course--that she should think of him in an almost maternal way. There was a dusting of gray at his temples and he was almost twice her age. But he was such a big bear cub of a man, with such a lost-orphan kind of helplessness about him at times, that he ignited the maternal spark in her. She hoped it wasn't too bright a spark and that it didn't show in her eyes. She had a feeling that he could ignite it in other women, too, and knew it only too well and perhaps even traded on it. A man could go very far, she told herself with more cynicism than she ordinarily felt, if he could do that to a woman and be exceptionally virile looking at the same time. "I could be wrong," Macklin said. "But I've a feeling that if you'd just bend over and breathe on this manuscript something wonderful would happen to it. Just the whiff of a _really_ beautiful femme would do the trick. The guy has all kinds of complexes and plenty of painful hungers and I'm not sure the right girl is sitting beside him in chapter three." "I bet there's a wolf pack on every page," she said. "I wouldn't be safe anywhere near a story like that." "Nope, you're way off base, gorgeous. Just one guy. He's slightly beat, sure. But basically he's a romantic idealist. He's the kind of guy it would be hard to separate from a room in Paris overlooking the Seine. Wine bottles on the floor, tubes of half-squeezed-out paint scattered around, everything in wild disorder. Being human, with the hungers and all, he's been out on the Boulevard looking for--I blush to say it--a pickup. He's found one, but, as I say, I'm not sure she's the right girl for him. But judge for yourself. It won't take a minute." "Very amusing, Jim. But I just haven't time right now." "Make time. You've got all afternoon to work down to the last of your manuscripts. And this is sure to interest you. She's right there beside him, sitting on a rumpled couch. Her long blonde hair is falling down and her lips are slightly parted--" "Well--" "Get the picture? Not a morsel of food has touched her lips for two days, and there's a tragic hopelessness in her eyes. But pallor becomes her. She's prepared to make any sacrifice, but she hopes she won't have to. It could develop into a great love, and she's hoping he'll have the strength to be understanding and wait. All right. He may look cynical, but he'd no more think of making a pass at that girl without encouragement than I would." "You'll get no encouragement from me, you grinning ape!" "A man can dream, can't he?"