nt which Flamel described as his studio showed, as its one
claim to the designation, a perennially empty easel; the rest of its
space being filled with the evidences of a comprehensive dilettanteism.
Against this background, which seemed the visible expression of its
owner's intellectual tolerance, rows of fine books detached themselves
with a prominence, showing them to be Flamel's chief care.

Glennard glanced with the eye of untrained curiosity at the lines of
warm-toned morocco, while his host busied himself with the uncorking of
Apollinaris.

"You've got a splendid lot of books," he said.

"They're fairly decent," the other assented, in the curt tone of the
collector who will not talk of his passion for fear of talking of
nothing else; then, as Glennard, his hands in his pockets, began to
stroll perfunctorily down the long line of bookcases--"Some men," Flamel
irresistibly added, "think of books merely as tools, others as tooling.
I'm between the two; there are days when I use them as scenery, other
days when I want them as society; so that, as you see, my library
represents a makeshift compromise between looks and brains, and the
collectors look down on me almost as much as the students."

Glennard, without answering, was mechanically taking one book after
another from the shelves. His hands slipped curiously over the smooth
covers and the noiseless subsidence of opening pages. Suddenly he came
on a thin volume of faded manuscript.

"What's this?" he asked, with a listless sense of wonder.

"Ah, you're at my manuscript shelf. I've been going in for that sort of
thing lately." Flamel came up and looked over his shoulders. "That's a
bit of Stendhal--one of the Italian stories--and here are some letters
of Balzac to Madame Commanville."

Glennard took the book with sudden eagerness. "Who was Madame
Commanville?"

"His sister." He was conscious that Flamel was looking at him with the
smile that was like an interrogation point. "I didn't know you cared for
this kind of thing."

"I don't--at least I've never had the chance. Have you many collections
of letters?"

"Lord, no--very few. I'm just beginning, and most of the interesting
ones are out of my reach. Here's a queer little collection, though--the
rarest thing I've got--half a dozen of Shelley's letters to Harriet
Westbrook. I had a devil of a time getting them--a lot of collectors
were after them."

Glennard, taking the volume from his hand, glanced w