ogy, I don't think you'd like coming."

"I'm interested in everything interesting," replied Norman dizzily. What
was he saying? What was he doing? What folly was his madness plunging
him into?

"You can come with Mr. Tetlow when he gets back."

"I'd prefer to talk with him alone," said Norman. "Perhaps I might see
some way to be of service to him."

Her expression was vividly different from what it had been when he
offered to help _her_. She became radiant with happiness. "I do hope
you'll come," she said--her voice very low and sweet, in the effort she
was making to restrain yet express her feelings.

"When? This evening?"

"He's always at home."

"You'll be there?"

"I'm always there, too. We have no friends. It's not easy to make
acquaintances in the East--congenial acquaintances."

"I'd want you to be there," he explained with great care, "because you
could help him and me in getting acquainted."

"Oh, he'll talk freely--to anyone. He talks only the one subject. He
never thinks of anything else."

She was resting her crossed arms on the back of her chair and, with her
chin upon them, was looking at him--a childlike pose and a childlike
expression. He said: "You are _sure_ you are twenty?"

She smiled gayly. "Nearly twenty-one."

"Old enough to be in love."

She lifted her head and laughed. She had charming white teeth--small and
sharp and with enough irregularity to carry out her general suggestion
of variability. "Yes, I shall like that, when it comes," she said; "But
the chances are against it just now."

"There's Tetlow."

She was much amused. "Oh, he's far too old and serious."

Norman felt depressed. "Why, he's only thirty-five."

"But I'm not twenty-one," she reminded him. "I'd want some one of my own
age. I'm tired of being so solemn. If I had love, I'd expect it to
change all that."

Evidently a forlorn and foolish person--and doubtless thinking of him,
two years the senior of Tetlow and far more serious, as an elderly
person, in the same class with her father. "But you like biology?" he
said. The way to a cure was to make her talk on.

"I don't know anything about it," said she, looking as frivolous as a
butterfly or a breeze-bobbed blossom. "I listen to father, but it's all
beyond me."

Yes--a light-weight. They could have nothing in common. She was a mere
surface--a thrillingly beautiful surface, but not a full-fledged woman.
So little did conversation with him interest her, sh