you for counsel and
assistance?"

"Well, why shouldn't you?" she answered seriously. "I have had the
opportunity and the time to learn some things--"

"You can't dismiss your kindness so easily as that."

"Oh, I don't think I have been particularly kind."

"Yes, you have. I admit that. You have."

He took the conversation with such painful seriousness that she was glad
to lighten it with a smile.

"If you persist in thinking so, you might feel like rewarding me by
coming to see me soon again."

"Yes, yes! I shall come to see you soon again. Certainly. Of course," he
added hastily, "it is desirable that I should talk with you more at
length about my school."

He was staring at her with a conflict of expressions in which, curiously
enough, pained bewilderment seemed uppermost. Sharlee laughed, not quite
at her ease.

"Do you know, I am still hoping that some day you will come to see me,
not to talk about anything definite--just to talk."

"As to that," he replied, "I cannot say. Good-night."

Forgetting that he had already shaken hands, he now went through with it
again. This time the ceremony had unexpected results. For now at the
first touch of her hand, a sensation closely resembling chain-lightning
sprang up his arm, and tingled violently down through all his person. It
was as if his arm had not merely fallen suddenly asleep, but was singing
uproariously in its slumbers.

"I'm so glad you came," said Sharlee.

He retired in a confusion which he was too untrained to hide. At the
door he wheeled abruptly, and cleared himself, with a white face, of
evasions that were torturing his conscience.

"I will not say that a probable benefit to the boys _never_ entered into
my thoughts about the school. Nor do I say that my next visit will be
_wholly_ to talk about definite things, as you put it. For part of the
time, I daresay I should like--just to talk."

Sharlee went upstairs, and stood for a long time gazing at herself in
the mirror. Vainly she tried to glean from it the answer to a most
interesting conundrum: Did Mr. Queed still think her very beautiful?

XXV

_Recording a Discussion about the Reformatory between Editor West
and his Dog-like Admirer, the City Boss; and a Briefer Conversation
between West and Prof. Nicolovius's Boarder._

About one o'clock the telephone rang sharply, and Queed, just arrived
for the afternoon work and alone in the office, answered it. It was the