the little figures and low reliefs. But don't forget it's a
_bookstore_."

"Oh, I won't. The sketches of all kinds would be strictly subordinated
to the books. If I had a tea-room handy here, with a table and the
backs of some menus to draw on, I could show you just how it would
look."

"What's the matter with the Casino?"

"Nothing; only it's rather early for tea yet."

"It isn't for soda-lemonade."

She set him the example of instantly rising, and led the way back
along the lake to the Casino, resting at that afternoon hour among its
spring flowers and blossoms innocent of its lurid after-dark
frequentation. He got some paper from the waiter who came to take
their order. She began to draw rapidly, and by the time the waiter
came again she was giving Erlcort the last scrap of paper.

"Well," he said, "I had no idea that I had imagined anything so
charming! If this critical bookstore doesn't succeed, it'll be because
there are no critics. But what--what are these little things hung
against the partitions of the shelves?"

"Oh--mirrors. Little round ones."

"But why mirrors of any shape?"

"Nothing; only people like to see themselves in a glass of any shape.
And when," Margaret added, in a burst of candor, "a woman looks up and
sees herself with a book in her hand, she will feel so intellectual
she will never put it down. She will buy it."

"Margaret Green, this is immoral. Strike out those mirrors, or I will
smash them every one!"

"Oh, very well!" she said, and she rubbed them out with the top of her
pencil. "If you want your place a howling wilderness."

He looked at the ruin her rubber had wrought. "They _were_ rather
nice. Could--could you rub them in again?"

"Not if I tried a hundred years. Besides, they _were_ rather impudent.
What time is it?"

"No time at all. It's half-past three."

"Dear me! I must be going. And if you're really going to start that
precious critical bookstore in the fall, you must begin work on it
right away."

"Work?"

"Reading up for it. If you're going to guarantee the books, you must
know what's in them, mustn't you?"

He realized that he must do what she said; he must know from his own
knowledge what was in the books he offered for sale, and he began
reading, or reading _at_, the new books immediately. He was a good
deal occupied by day with the arrangement of his store, though he left
it mainly with the lively young decorator who undertook for a lump sum
to rea