THE GIRL IN HIS HOUSE
knew about social conventions, the present situation was not clear to her. The innocent! He arraigned himself bitterly.
Whatever his resolves, these were negatived by an unexpected action on her part. She laughed, caught him by the sleeve, and ran with him into the study.
"I planned all this this afternoon," she confessed. She turned, struck a match, and threw it into the grate. "Now, sir, you sit perfectly still. You know all the nooks in this room. Study them out while I go. I'll be right back."
Never had he met such a woman, and she was a woman. She was at least twenty-two. In many things she was uncannily wise, in others as innocent as a child. And the exquisite lure of her lay in these two opposites. Never had he struck a happier phrase: pearl and pomegranate and Persian peach—jewels and fruit. She made him think of summer clouds, so lightly she moved. She made him think of his loneliness, too. He did not know then that his thought of loneliness was a dangerous one. "Let's go home! The thrill of it!"
He leaned back against the cushions, as
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