o
seconds, and returned to its usual condition. Fergus's smile is one of
the wonders of nature.

"What ye going to do?" asked Fergus. "Thrash the editor?"

"No," said I, "convert him."

Fergus slowly shook his head.

"Ye can't," said he.

"I've already begun," said I.

Fergus looked me over for a moment, and smiled again, this time winding
up with a snort or a cough, which started to be a laugh, but stopped
away down somewhere inside of him.

"Ye think I wrote it?"

"Well," said I, "you look perfectly capable of it."

I was just beginning to enjoy thoroughly this give and take of
conversation, which of all sports in the world is certainly the most
fascinating, when I heard steps behind me and, turning half around, saw
Anthy for the first time.

"There's the editor," said Fergus. "Ask her yourself."

She came down the room toward me with a quick, businesslike step. She
wore a little round straw hat with a plain band. She had a sprig of
lilac on her coat, and looked at me directly--like a man. She had very
clear blue eyes.

I have thought of this meeting a thousand times since--in the light of
all that followed--and this is literally all I saw. I was not especially
impressed in any way, except perhaps with a feeling of wonder that this
was the person in authority, really the editor.

I have tried to recall every instant of that meeting, and cannot
remember that I thought of her either as young or as a woman. Perhaps
the excitement and amusement of my talk with Fergus served to prevent a
more vivid first impression. I speak of this reaction because all my
life, whenever I have met a woman--I have been much alone--I have had a
curious sense of being with some one a little higher or better than I
am, to whom I should bow, or to whom I should present something, or with
whom I should joke. With whom I should not, after all, be quite natural!
I wonder if this is at all an ordinary experience with men? I wonder if
any one will understand me when I say that there has always seemed to me
something not quite proper in talking to a woman directly, seriously,
without reservation, as to a man? But I record it here as a curious fact
that I met Anthy that morning just as I would have met a man--as one
human being facing another.

"I am the editor," she said crisply, but with good humour.

"Well," I said, "I'm afraid I'm on a rather unusual and unbusinesslike
errand."

She did not help me.

"Last week I read an ed