He said "All right," took his hat and stick and went downstairs again. She opened the door for him, offering him her cool, slim hand, then she opened a hat-box and lifted from it a hat. "I believe I’ll join the Russian ballet," she said. "I do dance very nicely. You should hear what the ballet master says. And Miss Duncan and Miss St. Denis watched me yesterday, and they were very complimentary and polite." "Nonsense. It’s good exercise, but it would be a dog’s life for you to lead, Steve. Where is Helen?" "Out hunting a model for her Pegasus. She asked me to pose for the mounted figure, but I haven’t time. I can fancy myself, in a complete state of nature, scrambling onto some rickety old livery hack——" She threw back her head and laughed, then inspected her new hat, and, facing the studio mirror, pinned it to her chestnut hair. "Do you like it, Jim?" "Fine. You make all hats look well." "Such a nice, polite boy! So well brought up! But unfortunately I heard you say the same thing to Helen.... Where have you been, Jim? I called you up an hour ago." "I went to see Grismer," he said, coolly ignoring her perverse and tormenting humour. "You did? Bless your dear, generous heart!" cried the girl. "Do you know that if it were in me to be sentimental over you, what you did would start me? Continue to behave like a real man, dear friend, and I’ll be head over heels in love before I know it!" "Why?" he asked, conscious again of her gaily derisive mood and not caring for it. "Because," she said, "you have acted like a man in calling on Oswald, and not like a spoiled boy. You resented Oswald’s marrying me. You have been sullen and suspicious and aloof with him since you came back. I know Oswald better than you do. I know that he has felt your attitude keenly, though he never admitted it even to me. "He is a man of few friends, admired but not well liked; he is wretchedly poor, fiercely proud, sensitive——" "What!" "Did you think he wasn’t?" she asked. "He is painfully sensitive; pitiably so. I think women divine it, and it attracts them." "He hasn’t the reputation of being very thin-skinned," remarked Cleland drily. "The average man who is sensitive would die to conceal it. You ought to know that, Jim; it’s your business to dissect people, isn’t it?" She thrust a second pin through the crown of her hat and adjusted it deftly. "Anyway," she said, "you are a nice, polite boy to go to see him, and you have made me very happy. Good-bye! I must run——" "Have you lunched?" "No, but I’m going to." "With whom?" he asked incautiously. "A man." "You’re usually just going out to lunch or dine with some man," he said sullenly. "I like men," she said, smiling at him. "What you probably mean is that you like admiration."