ied to help Erlcort in making his
selection, and he could see them slyly looking his stock over for the
books they had praised to him. Mostly they went away without comment,
but with heads held high in the offense which he felt even more than
saw. One, indeed, did ask him why he had not stocked her chosen book,
and he had to say, "Well, when I came to go through it carefully, I
didn't think it quite--"

"But here is _The Green Bay Tree_, and _The Biggest Toad in the
Puddle_, and--"

"I know. For one reason and another I thought them worth stocking."

Then another head went away high in the air, with its plumes
quivering. One afternoon late a lady came flying in with all the
marks, whatever they are, of transatlantic travel upon her.

"I'm just through the customs, and I've motored up here the first
thing, even before I went home, to stop you from selling that book I
recommended. It's dreadful; and, horrors! horrors! here it is by the
hundreds! Oh, Mr. Erlcort! You mustn't sell that dreadful book! You
see, I had skipped through it in my berth going out, and posted my
letter the first thing; and just now, coming home, I found it in the
ship's library and came on that frightful episode. You know!
Where-- How _could_ you order it without reading it, on a mere say-so?
It's utterly immoral!"

"I don't agree with you," Erlcort answered, dryly. "I consider that
passage one of the finest in modern fiction--one of the most ennobling
and illumining--"

"Ennobling!" The lady made a gesture of horror. "Very well! If _that_
is your idea of a critical bookstore, all I've got to say is--"

But she had apparently no words to say it in, and she went out banging
but failing to latch the door which let through the indignant snort of
her car as it whirled her away. She left Erlcort and his assistant to
a common silence, but he imagined somehow a resolution in the
stenographer not to let the book go unsearched till she had grasped
the full iniquity of that episode and felt all its ennobling force. He
was not consoled when another lady came in and, after drifting
unmolestedly about (it was the primary rule of the place not to
follow people up), stopped before the side shelf where the book was
ranged in dozens and scores. She took a copy from the neat ranks, and
opened it; then she lifted her head by chance and caught sight of her
plume in one of the little mirrors. She stealthily lifted herself on
tiptoe till she could see her face,