front; most people showed no desire to have their ignorance
dispelled, and Mr. Gryce was like a merchant whose warehouses are
crammed with an unmarketable commodity.

But Miss Bart, it appeared, really did want to know about
Americana; and moreover, she was already sufficiently informed to
make the task of farther instruction as easy as it was agreeable.
She questioned him intelligently, she heard him submissively;
and, prepared for the look of lassitude which usually crept over
his listeners' faces, he grew eloquent under her receptive gaze.
The "points" she had had the presence of mind to glean from
Selden, in anticipation of this very contingency, were serving
her to such good purpose that she began to think her visit to him
had been the luckiest incident of the day. She had once more
shown her talent for profiting by the unexpected, and dangerous
theories as to the advisability of yielding to impulse were
germinating under the surface of smiling attention which she
continued to present to her companion.

Mr. Gryce's sensations, if less definite, were equally agreeable.
He felt the confused titillation with which the lower organisms
welcome the gratification of their needs, and all his senses
floundered in a vague well-being, through which Miss Bart's
personality was dimly but pleasantly perceptible.

Mr. Gryce's interest in Americana had not originated with
himself: it was impossible to think of him as evolving any taste
of his own. An uncle had left him a collection already noted
among bibliophiles; the existence of the collection was
the only fact that had ever shed glory on the name of Gryce, and