Gerty met Trent's embarrassed glance with the protecting smile with
which she favoured the young who combined his sex with his attractions.
Then, when he was quite at ease again, she turned to speak to Roger
Adams, for whom, in spite, as she laughingly said, of the distinction
between a bookworm and a butterfly, she was accustomed to admit a more
than ordinary liking.

He was a gaunt, scholarly looking man of forty years, with broad,
singularly bony shoulders, an expression of kindly humour, and a plain,
strong face upon which suffering had left its indelible suggestion of
defeated physical purpose. Nothing about him was impressive, nothing
even arresting to a casual glance, and not even the shooting light from
the keen gray eyes, grown a little wistful from the emotional repression
of the man's life, could account for the cordial appeal that spoke
through so unimposing a figure. As much of his personal history as Gerty
knew seemed to her peculiarly devoid of the interest or the excitement
of adventure; and the only facts of his life which she would have found
deserving the trouble of repeating were that he had married an
impossible woman somewhere in Colorado, and that for ten years he had
lived in New York where he edited _The International Review_.

"Perry tells me that Mr. Trent has really read Laura's poems," she said
now to Adams with an almost unconscious abandonment of her cynical
manner. "Have you examined him and is it really true?"

"I didn't test him because I hoped the report was false," was Adams'
answer. "He's welcome to the literary hash, but I want to keep the
_caviar_ for myself."

"Read them!" exclaimed Trent eagerly, while his blue eyes ran entirely