"Now you're beginning again," she complained. "You see, it's impossible
to treat you as an ordinary acquaintance."

"But what do you think of me as a painter-man?" inquired the bewildering
youth.

Preparatory to entering the house she had taken off her gloves, and now
one pinky-brown hand rested on the door lintel below him. "The question
is," said she, "wasn't it really you that sent the roses, and don't you
realize that you mustn't?"

"The question is," he repeated, "whether, being denied the ordinary
avenues of approach to a shrine, one is justified in jumping the fence
with one's votive offerings. Now I hold--"

Her left hand, shifting a little, flashed a gleam of gold into his eager
eyes, striking him into silence. When he spoke again, all the vividness
was gone from his voice. "I beg your pardon," he said. "Yes; I sent the
roses. You shan't be troubled again in that way--or any other way. Do
you mind if I finish this job?"

Victory for the defense! Yet the rosebud face of Anne Leffingwell
expressed concern and doubt rather than gratification. There is such a
thing as triumph being too complete.

"I think you're doing it very nicely," was the demure reply.

Notwithstanding this encomium, the workman knocked off early to sit on
my bench and indulge in the expression of certain undeniable but vague