e all in business."

"Lucky beggars."

Marion gave him a side glance intended to be annihilating, and silently
walked the few remaining steps. When they reached her door she stopped
and said, somewhat coldly: "Won't you come in, Mr. Grahame?"

"I certainly will, as I cannot leave with the mercury of your manners so
low."

"You surely do not fancy that you can make it rise."

"I do," he said confidently.

Marion looked at him scornfully, but it was an assumed scorn; as to
herself she admitted a fondness for assurance like Duncan's. Florence
Moreland would have called it presumption, but Marion felt that it
indicated a strong nature worthy of careful analysis. Her manner was
often the naivete of inexperience. She fancied that she knew the world,
but her knowledge was theoretically culled from her yellow-covered
romances. She frequently allowed men a freedom of speech which might be
misunderstood at times, and excused herself by the thought that such
carelessness became a woman of the world. She courted admiration
because she felt it to be her due, and in her search for experiences of
the world she often displayed an artlessness which was singularly liable
to be misinterpreted by the men with whom she came in contact.

Just inside the door on the right of the hall was a wee room decorated
in _Louis Quinze_ style, and into this they went. Delicate and cozy,
with a polished floor, a leopard's skin rug, soft tinted walls, white
and gold woodwork, a tiny open fire, a brocade screen, a chair or two
and a tete-a-tete seat,--it was, in fact, a delightful expression of
Marion's taste.

"Charming," said Duncan as he sat down opposite Marion on the
tete-a-tete and looked about him.

"I am glad something pleases you," she replied as she threw aside her
jacket. "Your assurance amazes me," she continued. "Last night you told
me you had been about collecting bits of gossip about me in order to
understand my character, and now you coolly inform me that you are
capable of influencing my feelings. I ought to detest you."

Duncan silently looked with his large, grey eyes into her face for a
moment and then said, "I wish you would."

"Why?" she questioned wonderingly.

"Because we might end by being friends."

"A repellent manner of attracting, certainly," she replied.

"Exactly! kindred natures always repel one another with a force equal to
their subsequent attraction."

"That sounds like a proposition in physics."

"In