finger nails."

He rose, at his ease, good-humored, ready to go. "Then you should have
worn gloves," said he carelessly, "for I've been able to think only of
your finger nails--and to wonder WHAT can be done with hands like that.
Thank you for a pleasant talk." He bowed and smiled. "Good-by.
Oh--Miss Gordon sent you her love."

"What IS the matter, Mr. Dorn?" cried the girl desperately. "I want
your friendship--your respect. CAN'T I get it? Am I utterly hopeless
in your eyes?"

A curious kind of color rose in his cheeks. His eyes regarded her with
a mysterious steadiness. "You want neither my respect nor my
friendship," said he. "You want to amuse yourself." He pointed at her
hands. "Those nails betray you." He shrugged his shoulders, laughed,
said as if to a child: "You are a nice girl, Jane Hastings. It's a
pity you weren't brought up to be of some use. But you weren't--and
it's too late."

Her eyes flashed, her bosom heaved. "WHY do I take these things from
you? WHY do I invite them?"

"Because you inherit your father's magnificent persistence--and you've
set your heart on the whim of making a fool of me--and you hate to give
up."

"You wrong me--indeed you do," cried she. "I want to learn--I want to
be of use in the world. I want to have some kind of a real life."

"Really?" mocked he good-humoredly.

"Really," said she with all her power of sweet earnestness.

"Then--cut your nails and go to work. And when you have become a
genuine laborer, you'll begin to try to improve not the condition of
others, but your own. The way to help workers is to abolish the idlers
who hang like a millstone about their necks. You can help only by
abolishing the one idler under your control."

She stood nearer him, very near him. She threw out her lovely arms in
a gesture of humility. "I will do whatever you say," she said.

They looked each into the other's eyes. The color fled from her face,
the blood poured into his--wave upon wave, until he was like a man who
has been set on fire by the furious heat of long years of equatorial
sun. He muttered, wheeled about and strode away--in resolute and
relentless flight. She dropped down where he had been sitting and hid
her face in her perfumed hands.

"I care for him," she moaned, "and he saw and he despises me! How COULD
I--how COULD I!"

Nevertheless, within a quarter of an hour she was in her dressing room,
standing at the table, eyes carefully avoi