vently, in the
comparative solitude of the lower floor. She had paused to look at
something in the book-department.

"Of course I was entirely at your service; don't mention it," she
replied, reaching forth her hand in an absent way for her parasol.

He held up instead the volume he had purchased. "Guess what that is! You
never would guess in this wide world!" His manner was surcharged with a
sense of the surreptitious.

"Well, then, there's no good trying, IS there?" commented Celia, her
glance roving again toward the shelves.

"It is a life of George Sand," whispered Theron. "I've been reading it
this morning--all the Chopin part--while I was waiting for you."

To his surprise, there was an apparently displeased contraction of her
brows as he made this revelation. For the instant, a dreadful fear of
having offended her seized upon and sickened him. But then her face
cleared, as by magic. She smiled, and let her eyes twinkle in laughter
at him, and lifted a forefinger in the most winning mockery of
admonition.

"Naughty! naughty!" she murmured back, with a roguishly solemn wink.

He had no response ready for this, but mutely handed her the parasol.
The situation had suddenly grown too confused for words, or even sequent
thoughts. Uppermost across the hurly-burly of his mind there scudded the
singular reflection that he should never hear her play on that new piano
of his. Even as it flashed by out of sight, he recognized it for one of
the griefs of his life; and the darkness which followed seemed nothing
but a revolt against the idea of having a piano at all. He would
countermand the order. He would--but she was speaking again.

They had strolled toward the door, and her voice was as placidly
conventional as if the talk had never strayed from the subject of
pianos. Theron with an effort pulled himself together, and laid hold of
her words.

"I suppose you will be going the other way," she was saying. "I shall
have to be at the church all day. We have just got a new Mass over from
Vienna, and I'm head over heels in work at it. I can have Father Forbes
to myself today, too. That bear of a doctor has got the rheumatism, and
can't come out of his cave, thank Heaven!"

And then she was receding from view, up the sunlit, busy sidewalk, and
Theron, standing on the doorstep, ruefully rubbed his chin. She had said
he was going the other way, and, after a little pause, he made her words
good, though each step he took s