it!" she retorted, tremulously; "I've learned
horrid things about other men, too--and they're not like you!"

"Valerie! Valerie! I'm precisely like all the rest--my selfishness is a
little more concentrated than theirs, that's the only difference. For
God's sake don't make a god of me."

She sat down on the head of the sofa, looking straight at him, pretty
head lowered a trifle so that her gaze was accented by the lovely level
of her brows:

"I've long wanted to have a thorough talk with you," she said. "Have you
got time now?"

He hesitated, controlling his secret amusement under an anxious gravity
as he consulted the clock.

"Suppose you give me an hour on those figures up there? The light will
be too poor to work by in another hour. Then we'll have tea and
'thorough talks.'"

"All right," she said, calmly.

He picked up palette and mahl-stick and mounted to his perch on the
scaffolding; she walked slowly into the farther room, stood motionless a
moment, then raising both arms she began to unhook the collar of her
gown.

When she was ready she stepped into her sandals, threw the white wool
robe over her body, and tossed one end across her bare shoulder.

He descended, aided her aloft to her own eyrie, walked across the
planking to his own, and resumed palette and brushes in excellent humour
with himself, talking gaily while he was working:

"I'm devoured by curiosity to know what that 'thorough talk' of yours is
going to be about. You and I, in our briefly connected careers, have
discussed every subject on earth, gravely or flippantly, and what in the
world this 'thorough talk' is going to resemble is beyond me--"

"It might have to do with your lack of ceremony--a few minutes ago," she
said, laughing at him.

"My--what?"

"Lack of ceremony. You called me Valerie."

"You can easily revenge that presumption, you know."

"I think I will--Kelly."

He smiled as he painted:

"I don't know why the devil they call me Kelly," he mused. "No episode
that I ever heard of is responsible for that Milesian misnomer. _Quand
meme_! It sounds prettier from you than it ever did before. I'd rather
hear you call me Kelly than Caruso sing my name as Algernon."

"Shall I really call you Kelly?"

"Sure thing! Why not?"

"I don't know. You're rather celebrated--to have a girl call you Kelly."

He puffed out his chest in pretence of pompous satisfaction:

"True, child. Good men are scarce--but the good and great a