"Why, Joyce. The one, the only,--as we believe."

"Abner Joyce? _This Weary World? The Rod of the Oppressor_?"

"Exactly. Let me bring him over and present him."

"Whichever you like; arrange it between Mohammed and the Mountain just as
you please." She looked over her shoulder; little Bond was following.
"Waive all ceremony," she begged. "I will go to him."

Giles trundled her over toward the dusky canopy under which Abner stood
chafing, conscious at once of his own powers and of his own social
inexpertness. In particular had he looked out with bitterness upon the
airy circulations of Adrian Bond--Adrian who smirked here and nodded
there and chaffed a bit now and then with the blonde Clytie and openly
philandered over the tea-urn with the brunette Medora. "That snip! That
water-fly! That whipper-snapper! That----"

Abner turned with a start. A worldly person, clad voluminously in furs,
was extending a hand that sparkled with many rings and was composing a
pair of smiling lips to say the pleasant thing. This attention was
startlingly, embarrassingly sudden, but it was welcome and it was
appropriate. Abner was little able to realize the quality of aggressive
homage that resided in Mrs. Pence's resolute and unconventional advance,
but it was natural enough that this showy woman should wish to manifest
her appreciation of a gifted and rising author. He took her hand with a
graceless gravity.

Mrs. Pence, upon a nearer view, found Abner all she had hoped. Confronted
by his stalwart limbs and expansive shoulders, she was no longer a