he plot of the new novel when
T. Sandys fixed you with his gleaming orb. You were in the middle of
the rumour about Mrs. Golightly when he let the poker fall. If the
newsboys were yelling the latest horror he quickly closed the window.
He made all visitors self-conscious. If she was not in the room few of
them dared to ask if she was quite well. They paled before expressing
the hope that she would feel stronger to-morrow. Yet when Tommy went
up to sit beside her, which was the moment the front door closed, he
took care to mention, incidentally, that they had been inquiring after
her. One of them ventured on her birthday to bring her flowers, but
could not present them, Tommy looked so alarming. A still more daring
spirit once went the length of addressing her by her Christian name.
She did not start up haughtily (the most timid of women are a surprise
at times), but the poker fell with a crash.

He knew Elspeth so well that he could tell exactly how these poor
young men should approach her. As an artist as well as a brother, he
frowned when they blundered. He would have liked to be the medium
through which they talked, so that he could give looks and words their
proper force. He had thought it all out so thoroughly for Elspeth's
benefit that in an hour he could have drawn out a complete guide for
her admirers.

"At the first meeting look at her wistfully when she does not see you.
She will see you." It might have been Rule One.

Rule Two: "Don't talk so glibly." How often that was what the poker
meant!

Being herself a timid creature, Elspeth showed best among the timid,
because her sympathetic heart immediately desired to put them at their
ease. The more glibly they could talk, the less, she knew, were they
impressed by her. Even a little boorishness was more complimentary
than chatter. Sometimes when she played on the piano which Tommy had
hired for her, the visitor was so shy that he could not even mutter
"Thank you" to his hat; yet she might play to him again, and not to
the gallant who remarked briskly: "How very charming! What is that
called?"

To talk disparagingly of other women is so common a way among men of
penetrating into the favour of one that, of course, some tried it with
Elspeth. Tommy could not excuse such blundering, for they were making
her despise them. He got them out of the house, and then he and she
had a long talk, not about them, but about men and women in general,
from which she gathere