was as brilliantly illuminated as when the company had separated there
for the night, and he pushed across the foyer hall that separated the
billiard-room from the drawing-zoom and library. He entered the
drawing-room, and in the depths of the library, relieved against the rows
of books in their glass cases, he startled Miss Shirley from a pose which
she seemed to be taking there alone.

At the instant of their mutual recognition she gave a little muted
shriek, and then gasped out, "I beg your pardon," while he was saying,
too, "I beg your pardon."

After a tacit exchange of forgiveness, he said, "I am afraid I startled
you. I was just coming for a book to read myself asleep with. I--"

"Not at all," she returned. "I was just--" Then she did not say what,
and he asked:

"Making some studies?"

"Yes," she owned, with reluctant promptness.

"I mustn't ask what," he suggested, and he made an effort to smile away
what seemed a painful perturbation in her as he went forward to look at
the book-shelves, from which, till then, she had not slipped aside.

"I'm in your way," she said, and he answered, "Not at all." He added to
the other sentence he had spoken, "If it's going to be as good as what
you gave us today--"

"You are very kind." She hesitated, and then she said, abruptly: "What I