ng men liked her, and that
their liking pleased her. It thrilled him to think that she knew he
liked her, too, and to recall what abundant proofs she had given that
here, also, she had pleasure in the fact. He clung insistently to the
memory of these evidences. They helped him to resist a disagreeable
tendency to feel himself an intruder, an outsider, among these
pianoforte experts.

When it was all over, Celia waved the others aside, and talked with
Theron. "I suppose you want me to tell you the truth," she said.
"There's nothing here really good. It is always much better to buy of
the makers direct."

"Do they sell on the instalment plan?" he asked. There was a wistful
effect in his voice which caught her attention.

She looked away--out through the window on the street below--for
a moment. Then her eyes returned to his, and regarded him with a
comforting, friendly, half-motherly glance, recalling for all the world
the way Sister Soulsby had looked at him at odd times.

"Oh, you want it at once--I see," she remarked softly. "Well, this
Adelberger is the best value for the money."

Mr. Ware followed her finger, and beheld with dismay that it pointed
toward the largest instrument in the room--a veritable leviathan among
pianos. The price of this had been mentioned as $600. He turned over the
fact that this was two-thirds his yearly salary, and found the courage
to shake his head.

"It would be too large--much too large--for the room," he explained.
"And, besides, it is more than I like to pay--or CAN pay, for that
matter." It was pitiful to be explaining such details, but there was no
help for it.

They picked out a smaller one, which Celia said was at least of fair
quality. "Now leave all the bargaining to me," she adjured him. "These
prices that they talk about in the piano trade are all in the air. There
are tremendous discounts, if one knows how to insist upon them. All
you have to do is to tell them to send it to your house--you wanted it
today, you said?"

"Yes--in memory of yesterday," he murmured.

She herself gave the directions, and Thurston's people, now all salesmen
again, bowed grateful acquiescence. Then she sailed regally across the
room and down the stairs, drawing Theron in her train. The hirelings
made salaams to him as well; it would have been impossible to interpose
anything so trivial and squalid as talk about terms and dates of
payment.

"I am ever so much obliged to you," he said fer