cribed how she had arrived in London that very
afternoon, and how she had taken a cab and driven through the streets.
Mr. Peyton, an editor of fifty years, bowed his bald head repeatedly,
with apparent understanding. At least, he understood that she was very
young and pretty, and saw that she was excited, though he could not
gather at once from her words or remember from his own experience what
there was to be excited about. "Were there any buds on the trees?" he
asked. "Which line did she travel by?"

He was cut short in these amiable inquiries by her desire to know
whether he was one of those who read, or one of those who look out of
the window? Mr. Peyton was by no means sure which he did. He rather
thought he did both. He was told that he had made a most dangerous
confession. She could deduce his entire history from that one fact. He
challenged her to proceed; and she proclaimed him a Liberal Member of
Parliament.

William, nominally engaged in a desultory conversation with Aunt
Eleanor, heard every word, and taking advantage of the fact that elderly
ladies have little continuity of conversation, at least with those whom
they esteem for their youth and their sex, he asserted his presence by a
very nervous laugh.

Cassandra turned to him directly. She was enchanted to find that,
instantly and with such ease, another of these fascinating beings was
offering untold wealth for her extraction.

"There's no doubt what YOU do in a railway carriage, William," she said,
making use in her pleasure of his first name. "You never ONCE look out
of the window; you read ALL the time."

"And what facts do you deduce from that?" Mr. Peyton asked.

"Oh, that he's a poet, of course," said Cassandra. "But I must confess
that I knew that before, so it isn't fair. I've got your manuscript with
me," she went on, disregarding Mr. Peyton in a shameless way. "I've got
all sorts of things I want to ask you about it."

William inclined his head and tried to conceal the pleasure that her
remark gave him. But the pleasure was not unalloyed. However susceptible
to flattery William might be, he would never tolerate it from people who
showed a gross or emotional taste in literature, and if Cassandra erred
even slightly from what he considered essential in this respect he
would express his discomfort by flinging out his hands and wrinkling his
forehead; he would find no pleasure in her flattery after that.

"First of all," she proceeded, "I