eal collector
values a thing for its rarity. I don't suppose the buyers of Americana
sit up reading them all night--old Jefferson Gryce certainly didn't."

She was listening with keen attention. "And yet they fetch fabulous
prices, don't they? It seems so odd to want to pay a lot for an ugly
badly-printed book that one is never going to read! And I suppose most
of the owners of Americana are not historians either?"

"No; very few of the historians can afford to buy them. They have to use
those in the public libraries or in private collections. It seems to be
the mere rarity that attracts the average collector."

He had seated himself on an arm of the chair near which she was standing,
and she continued to question him, asking which were the rarest volumes,
whether the Jefferson Gryce collection was really considered the finest
in the world, and what was the largest price ever fetched by a single
volume.

It was so pleasant to sit there looking up at her, as she lifted now one
book and then another from the shelves, fluttering the pages between her
fingers, while her drooping profile was outlined against the warm
background of old bindings, that he talked on without pausing to wonder
at her sudden interest in so unsuggestive a subject. But he could never
be long with her without trying to find a reason for what she was doing,
and as she replaced his first edition of La Bruyere and turned away from
the bookcases, he began to ask himself what she had been driving at. Her
next question was not of a nature to enlighten him. She paused before him
with a smile which seemed at once designed to admit him to her
familiarity, and to remind him of the restrictions it imposed.

"Don't you ever mind," she asked suddenly, "not being rich enough to buy
all the books you want?"

He followed her glance about the room, with its worn furniture and shabby
walls.

"Don't I just? Do you take me for a saint on a pillar?"

"And having to work--do you mind that?"

"Oh, the work itself is not so bad--I'm rather fond of the law."

"No; but the being tied down: the routine--don't you ever want to get
away, to see new places and people?"

"Horribly--especially when I see all my friends rushing to the steamer."

She drew a sympathetic breath. "But do you mind enough--to marry to get
out of it?"

Selden broke into a laugh. "God forbid!" he declared.

She rose with a sigh, tossing her cigarette into the grate.

"Ah, there's the diff