"I'm keeping in shape, you see," he told her without his usual diffidence. "I don't know quite why. Everybody says I'm through, but sometimes I think something may turn up. Enough to bring me a little stake anyhow. And, anyway, it pays me a little. I'm working out with Jack English. He's a welter; he's getting ready for a go with Levitt. I've told you a lot about this business, but you can't judge much just from talk. I--I'd like to have you come up and watch me box." There it was, of a sudden. There was his shyness again, so lamely come upon him that it colored his face. And the halting boyishness of the request had warmed Cecille's face too; warmed her through and through. She knew an impulse to hug his head to her breast, a very mature and motherly impulse. He had told her much of this business; so much that she hardly recoiled from it at all. A welter--yes, she understood that. Between a light-weight and a middle. But she hesitated so long that he thought he had guessed her objection and hastened to reassure her. "There won't be anybody there," he said. "Nobody. Just English and his trainer and me. You needn't be afraid--" "I'm not," she stopped him. "It's not--that." So she went. CHAPTER VIII MY LAD She found herself an hour later in a huge light room, with a floor like a dance hall and much strange paraphernalia against the walls. Little of it she was able to identify, though she took it all in with alert and eager eyes. This was the chiefest part of his life, so she must not even seem to slight it. The Indian clubs and dumb-bells--but they were easy. And the roped-off square at one end. That was the ring. She found herself alone for a while, and was thrilled and excited and very happy. And then a quiet man who was, she guessed correctly, English's trainer came briskly toward her. "You needn't be afraid." So Perry had assured her. Surely not if this man's bearing was any criterion. He brought her a chair. "Thank you." Her voice sounded small in that high-ceiled room. He only bowed in reply and went quietly away. And then the next time she looked up it was to find Perry standing there beside her--a different Perry--a pagan Perry, stripped of all save trunks and shoes, yet unconscious of his nakedness. "I'm not afraid," she'd told him. "It's not that." Now she knew why she had hesitated about coming. And she was sorry, and breathlessly glad. A pagan Perry, and one more beautiful than she otherwise could ever have dreamed. And yet, after the first startled glance, while she still dropped her head and put palms to her cheeks to hide a furious color, his lack of self-consciousness dismayed her, until it occurred to her that these were his working clothes--casual, ordinary. And with that a queer thought, seemingly unrelated, flashed through her head. She remembered that women almost never went to prize-fights--it was a man's sport--and she was jealously glad over that.