“I don’t believe you were listening to what I said at all,” she exclaimed with mock anger. “A penny for your real thoughts!” “May I be bold enough to tell you just what I was thinking?” “Yes.” “I was thinking,” he said with a sober smile, “what a beautiful picture you make in this old oak panelled room. The delicate lines of your face seem at home here as though the master workman who carved the figure in that mantel had seen you in a vision while he was at work.” “What a dreamer you are!” she laughed. “And you are willing to trust me as a lawyer?” “Absolutely.” “Then I must prove myself worthy, mustn’t I?” “The papers are ready”--she said, bustling about the table and mixing the bundles in greater confusion with an attempt at arranging them in business order. John seated himself and began to examine them. She bent over his shoulder saying with a light laugh: “I’ll do my best to explain them--they are all Greek to me--but you’ll understand.” “I’m sure there will be no great difficulty.” He ran rapidly over the bundles and in half an hour had made memorandums of each division of the work before him. He took up one of the packages and began its careful reading, but the writing faded. He could hear Stella softly breathing as she bent near him and see the beautiful little hand resting on the table. He was seized with a mad impulse to grasp it and clasp her in his arms. He smiled and placed his hand on his forehead a moment lest she might see his confusion. He could endure it no longer. He must leave and regain control of himself. He tied the packages of papers together and rose. “You are going so soon?” she asked. “Yes, I’ll take them down to my office. It will require several hours to go over them.” “You will come again to-morrow?” she said softly. “I’ll report to you again to-morrow evening.” “I shall expect you at eight,” she said, extending her hand. He held it unconsciously for an instant, and wondered if she could feel the pounding of his heart. He came each evening for a week and spent two hours in the library with Stella until every letter and paper had been thoroughly examined. In a hundred little ways she had made him feel the power and charm of her personality; in no way so keenly, perhaps, as in the long silences during which she sat near with her great brown eyes watching him intently. He could feel their deep mysterious light in whatever direction he turned. In no other way could she have made so powerful an appeal to his imagination. To his poetic fancy, this capacity for silent comradeship in a girl so young revealed a depth of character which he had not suspected. The real depth of its meaning he could not dream. The moments of exultant triumph, of breathless suspense, of merciless cruelty with which she watched him slowly entering the trap she had set, were safely concealed beneath the childlike expression of her beautiful face.