Glennard, carefully measuring his second cup of tea, said, with
deliberation, "I didn't know you cared about that sort of thing."

She was, in fact, not a great reader, and a new book seldom
reached her till it was, so to speak, on the home stretch; but she
replied, with a gentle tenacity, "I think it would interest me
because I read her life last year."

"Her life? Where did you get that?"

"Someone lent it to me when it came out--Mr. Flamel, I think."

His first impulse was to exclaim, "Why the devil do you borrow
books of Flamel? I can buy you all you want--" but he felt
himself irresistibly forced into an attitude of smiling
compliance. "Flamel always has the newest books going, hasn't he?
You must be careful, by the way, about returning what he lends
you. He's rather crotchety about his library."

"Oh, I'm always very careful," she said, with a touch of
competence that struck him; and she added, as he caught up his
hat: "Don't forget the letters."

Why had she asked for the book? Was her sudden wish to see it the
result of some hint of Flamel's? The thought turned Glennard
sick, but he preserved sufficient lucidity to tell himself, a
moment later, that his last hope of self-control would be lost if
he yielded to the temptation of seeing a hidden purpose in
everything she said and did. How much Flamel guessed, he had no
means of divining; nor could he predicate, from what he knew of