l hands you have, Hermione--and I shall dream of your
arms."

"My arms?" she repeated, staring.

"They're so--smooth and white--"

"Oh, that's flour!" said she, bending over the table.

"And so--round--"

"Oh, Mr. Geoffrey! Can't you find something else to talk about?"

"Why, of course," he answered, "there are your feet, so slender and
shapely--"

"In these frightful old shoes!" she added.

"Worn out mostly in other peoples' service," he nodded. "God bless
them!"

"They let the wet in horribly when it rains!" she sighed.

"So heaven send us dry weather! Then there is your wonderful hair," he
continued, "so long and soft and--"

"And all bunched up anyhow!" said she, touching the heavy, shining
braids with tentative fingers. "Please don't say any more, Mr. Geoffrey,
because I just know I look a sight--I feel it! And in this old gown
too--it's the one I keep to scrub the floors in--"

"Scrub the floors?" he repeated.

"Why, of course, floors must be scrubbed, and I've had plenty--oh,
plenty of experience--now what are you thinking?"

"That a great many women might envy you that gown for the beauty that
goes with it. You are very beautiful, you know, Hermione."

"And beauty in a woman is--everything, isn't it?" she said a little
bitterly and with head suddenly averted.

"Have I offended you?"

"No," she answered without looking around, "only sometimes you are so
very--personal."

"Because the First and Second Persons Singular Number are the most
interesting persons in the world, and--Hermione, in all this big world
there is only one person I want. Could you ever learn to love a peanut
man?"

"That would all depend--on the peanut man," she answered softly, "and
you--you don't talk or act a little bit like a real peanut man."

"Well, could you stoop to love this peanut man just as he is, with all
his faults and failures, love him enough to trust yourself to his
keeping, to follow him into the unknown, to help him find that Beautiful
City of Perhaps--could you, Hermione?" As he ended he rose to his feet,
but swiftly, dexterously, she eluded him.

"Wait!" she pleaded, facing him across the table, "I--I want to talk to
you--to ask you some questions, and I want you to be serious, please."

"Solemn as sixty judges!" he nodded.

"Well, first, Mr. Geoffrey--why do you pretend to sell peanuts?"

"Pretend!" he repeated, trying to sound aggrieved.

"Oh, I'm not blind, Mr. Geoffrey."

"No, indeed--I