Also she looked far less artificial and flamboyant than she had looked at luncheon. Jim’s orange-shaded reading lamp was kinder to her than that intrusively glaring sunbeam had been. There was even a softness and a dignity about her, he thought. Perhaps, though, it was merely a pose, put on for the occasion as she had put on her dinner dress. Moving slowly and with a very real grace, she came a few steps into the room and inclined her handsome head very slightly. “Mr. Barrison?” He bowed and drew a high-backed, brocaded chair into a more inviting position. “Won’t you sit down?” “Thank you. I am Grace Templeton.” “I know,” he said, smiling courteously. “I feel enormously honored.” “Ah, yes. You saw me at lunch to-day.” “I have seen you before.” “Really!” Her eyes lit up with genuine pleasure. She was inordinately vain of her stage reputation. She thrilled to the admiration of her anonymous audiences. Jim, looking at her, marveled at that imperishable thirst for adulation which, gratified, could bring a woman joy at such a moment. For he felt sure that it was no ordinary crisis which had brought Miss Templeton to consult him that night. She sank into the chair he proffered, and the high, square back made a fine frame for the gilded perfection of her hair. He thought, quite coolly, that no one ever had a whiter throat or more exquisitely formed arms and wrists. Her manner was admirable; not a trace now of that primitive and untamed ferocity of mood which had blazed in her whole face and figure not so many hours before. She was very beautiful, very sedate, very self-contained. Barrison was able to admire her frankly—but never for a second did he lift the vigilance of the watch he had determined to keep upon her. In his own mind he marked her “dangerous”—and not the less so because just at present she was behaving so extremely, so unbelievably well. “You are surprised to see me here, Mr. Barrison,” she said, making it a statement rather than a question. “I confess that I am.” “I wanted your help, and—when I want a thing I ask for it.” She paused a moment, looking at him steadily. “Won’t you please sit down yourself?” she said. “And move your lamp. I like to see the face of the person I am talking to.” Barrison did what she wished silently. In half a minute more they confronted each other across the library table, with the reading light set somewhat aside. Miss Templeton drew a deep breath and leaned forward with her lovely arms upon the table. “When I heard that you were to be called in as an expert to help in—our—play”—she paused, with a faint smile that was rather touching—“you see, it _was_ ‘our play’ then—I made up my mind to consult you. For I was troubled even then. But the best laid schemes——” She broke off, with a little gesture that somehow made her look younger. “Oh, well—I found myself, in an hour, in a minute, in a position I was not used to: I was dismissed!” She made him feel the outrageousness of this.