But before she had so much as drawn off her gloves--and they were always the most spotless of white gloves--she glanced about in mock dismay and saw that the last of the righting-up had already been done. There was not even a book for her to replace, or a plaque to tuck away. She pouted at this, prettily and girlishly; she had hurried away from her coffee and rolls just to help him. Repellier, in his lighter moods, had an affectionate and quite fatherly way about him that was all-conquering. He penitently pinned a long-stemmed American Beauty rose on her wine-tinted gown, and shaking his head dolefully over the color combination, replaced it with a cluster of gardenias. She fluttered femininely to a mirror, to view the result of the added touch, and then bowed her gratitude with arch solemnity. She was not slow to realize the lighter mood in Repellier, and was glad of it. Then, talking the while of the night before, she went over to his book-table, and hovered restlessly over the different volumes scattered about, scarcely knowing just how to wear the conversation through its tides of change into that particular slip where it was to be hawsered. To Repellier she seemed like a humming-bird darting about a little high-walled garden, ready to be off like a flash when the last flower had been rifled. He watched her, smiling, while she hovered on from topic to topic, looking up at him now and then; now and then nervously turning over the books on the table before her, and wondering within herself just why it was this man had always vaguely intimidated her. She was about to open her lips when he suddenly stopped her. "Did you know that that's Hartley's book you have there?" For one quick, searching second she looked up at him, and then casually opened the little volume upon which her hand had fallen by accident. Repellier had once thought her the sort of woman that never blushed. "'Atalanta and Other Poems, by John Hartley,'" she read aloud idly, with raised eyebrows. "And a dedication as well: 'To C. M.' Did he leave it last night, or is he the kind that always sends them round next day?" "Hartley's not that sort at all." The woman slipped into a chair, and with her chin on her hand, meditatively turned over a page or two. Then she closed the book nonchalantly, almost disdainfully. She confessed that she had no particular love for poetry. "Tell me about him, though," she finally said quite seriously and quite openly. "I'd like to know something about him--_all_ about him." Repellier, who had been adjusting a great paint-besplattered easel, came over and took up the thin, green volume. "This is what I want to knock out of him," he said, tapping the little book, "for a while, at least. And I think, Miss Vaughan, you are the happy possessor of a lot I'd like to pound into him." "And that is----" "Oh, I mean poise and balance--good, practical judgment." "Thank you." She caught up her skirts and courtesied.