with the new socks in her hand when Tembarom, suddenly inspired,
darted after her.

"Say, I've just thought of something," he exclaimed eagerly. "It's
something I want to ask you."

"What is it?"

"It's about the society-page lay-out." He hesitated. "I wonder if
it'd be rushing you too much if --say," he suddenly broke off, and
standing with his hands in his pockets, looked down at her with
anxious admiration, "I believe you just know about everything."

"No, I don't, Mr. Tembarom; but I'm very glad about the page.
Everybody's glad."

One of the chief difficulties Tembarom found facing him when he
talked to Little Ann was the difficulty of resisting an awful
temptation to take hold of her--to clutch her to his healthy,
tumultuous young breast and hold her there firmly. He was half
ashamed of himself when he realized it, but he knew that his venial
weakness was shared by Jim Bowles and Steinberger and probably others.
She was so slim and light and soft, and the serious frankness of her
eyes and the quaint air of being a sort of grown-up child of
astonishing intelligence produced an effect it was necessary to
combat with.

"What I wanted to say," he put it to her, "was that I believe if
you'd just let me talk this thing out to you it'd do me good. I
believe you'd help me to get somewhere. I've got to fix up a scheme