The question took Peter's breath. She said it in unmistakable good faith, like a man. But never, never, in Peter's whole adult life, had a woman said such a thing to him. That women came occasionally; into the old bachelor apartment building, he knew. But the implications! What would Hamer-ton, across the hall, think of him were he to meet them together in the elevator? What would John the night man think? Above all (this thought came second) what would they think of Sue? “Oh,” observed Sue, with real good humor, “I remember! That's the building where women callers can't stay after eleven at night.” Peter nearly succeeded in fighting back the flush that came. “Which,” Sue continued, “has always seemed to me the final comment on conventional morality. It's the best bit of perfectly unconscious humor in New York.” Peter was thinking--in flashes and leaps, like Napoleon--startled by his own daring, yet athrill with new determination. The Worm was out of town; Hy very much engaged.... Besides, Sue was honest and right. This was the sincere note in the New Russianism. Being yourself, straight-out. He must rise to it, now or never, if he was not to lose Sue for good. So he smiled. “It's only eight,” he said. “I can read you the whole thing and we can discuss it within a couple of hours. And we won't be interrupted there.” Walking straight into that building with Sue at his side, nodding with his usual casual friendliness to John the night man, chatting while the elevator crawled endlessly upward to the seventh floor, overcoming the impulse to run past the doors of the other apartments, carrying it all off with easy sophistication; this was unquestionably the bravest single act in the whole life of Peter Ericson Mann. Peter could be a pleasant host. He lighted the old gas-burning student lamp on the desk; started a fire; threw all the cushions in one large pile on the couch. Sue threw aside her coat and tarn o'shanter, smoothed her hair a little, then curled up on the couch with her feet under her where she could watch the fire; and where (as it happened) the firelight played softly on her alert face. She filled the dingy old room with a new and very human warmth. Peter settled back in the Morris chair and after one long look at her plunged with a sudden fever of energy into the reading of the scenario. It was the thing Peter did best. He read rapidly; moved forward in his chair and gestured now and then for emphasis with his long hands; threw more than a little sense of movement and power into it.