"It really isn’t very funny, Jim. The little thing has been dreadfully unhappy all her life until I—until we stepped in." "_We?_" "You and I, Jim. It’s our job." After a silence the boy said: "What was the matter with her?" "Starvation, cruelty." The boy’s incredulous eyes were fastened on his father’s. "Cold, hunger, loneliness, neglect. And drunken parents who beat her so mercilessly that once they broke two of her ribs.... Don’t talk about it to her, Jim. Let the child forget if she can." "Yes, sir." The boy’s eyes were still dilated with horror, but his features were set and very still. "We’ve got to look out for her, old chap." "Yes," said the boy, flushing. Cleland Senior, of course, expected to assist at the first interview, but Stephanie was not to be found. High and low Janet searched; John Cleland, troubled, began a tour of the house, calling: "Steve! Where are you?" Jim, in his room, unstrapping his suitcase, felt rather than heard somebody behind him; and, looking up over his shoulder saw a girl. She was a trifle pale; dropped him a curtsey: "I’m Steve," she said breathlessly. Boy and girl regarded each other in silence for a moment; then Jim offered his hand: "How do you do?" he said, calmly. "I—I’m very well. I hope you are, too." Another pause, during a most intent mutual inspection. "My tennis bat," explained Jim, with polite condescension, "needs to be re-strung. That’s why I brought it down from school.... Do you play tennis?" "No." Cleland Senior, on the floor below, heard the young voices mingling above him, listened, then quietly withdrew to the library to await events. Janet looked in later. "Do they like each other?" he asked in a low, anxious voice. "Mr. Cleland, sor, Miss Steve is on the floor listenin’ to that blessed boy read thim pieces he has wrote in the school paper! Like two lambs they do be together, sor, and the fine little gentleman and little lady they are, God be blessed this April day!" After a while he went upstairs, cautiously, the soft carpet muffling his tread. Jim, seated on the side of his bed, was being worshipped, permitting it, accepting it. Stephanie, cross-legged on the floor, adored him with awed, uplifted gaze, her clasped hands lying in her lap. "To be a writer," Jim condescended to explain, "a man has got to work like the dickens, study everything you ever heard of, go out and have adventures, notice everything that people say and do, how they act and walk and talk. It’s a very interesting profession, Steve.... What are _you_ going to be?" "I don’t know," she whispered, "—nothing, I suppose." "Don’t you want to be something? Don’t you want to be celebrated?" She thought, hesitatingly, that it would be pleasant to be celebrated. "Then you’d better think up something to do to make the world notice you." "I shouldn’t know what to do."