``If I'd not be interrupting,'' said Jane.

``Come right in. He's used to being interrupted. They don't
give him five minutes to himself all day long--especially now
that the campaign's on. He always does his serious work very
early in the morning.''

They went through a hall, pleasantly odorous of baking in which
good flour and good butter and good eggs were being manufactured
into something probably appetizing, certainly wholesome. Jane
caught a glimpse through open doors on either side of a neat and
reposeful little library-sitting room, a plain delightfully
simple little bedroom, a kitchen where everything shone. She
arrived at the rear door somehow depressed, bereft of the feeling
of upper-class superiority which had, perhaps unconsciously,
possessed her as she came toward the house. At the far end of an
arbor on which the grape vines were so trellised that their broad
leaves cast a perfect shade, sat Victor writing at a table under
a tree. He was in his shirt sleeves, and his shirt was open at
the throat. His skin was smooth and healthily white below the
collar line. The forearms exposed by his rolled up sleeves were
strong but slender, and the faint fair hair upon them suggested a
man, but not an animal.

Never had she seen his face and head so fine. He was writing
rapidly, his body easily erect, his head and neck in a poise of
grace and strength. Jane grew pale and trembled--so much so that
she was afraid the keen, friendly eyes of Alice Sherrill were
seeing. Said Mrs. Sherrill, raising her voice: