herself she explained this on the theory that she needed something
to occupy her mind. Something _else_ she really meant, for Mr.
Harrington Surtaine was now occupying it to an inexcusable extent. She
wished very much to see Harrington Surtaine, and, for the first time in
her life, she feared what she wished. What she had so loftily announced
to Kathleen Pierce as her unalterable determination toward the editor of
the "Clarion" wasn't as easy to perform as to promise. Yet, the
explanation of the partial error, into which the self-excusatory Miss
Pierce had led her, was certainly due him, according to her notions of
fair play. If she sent for him to come, he would, she shrewdly judged,
decline. The alternative was to beard him in his office. In the
strengthening and self-revealing solitude of her garden, this glowing
summer day, Esme sat trying to make up her mind. A daring brown
thrasher, his wings a fair match for the ruddy-golden glow in the girl's
eyes, hopped into her haunt, and twittered his counsel of courage.

"I'll do it NOW," said Esme, and the bird, with a triumphant chirp of
congratulation, swooped off to tell the news to the world of wings and
flowers.

To the consequent interview there was no witness. So it may best be
chronicled in the report made by the interviewer to her friend Mrs.
Festus Willard, who, in the cool seclusion of her sewing-room, was
overwhelmed by a rush of Esme to the heart, as she put it. Not having
been apprised of Miss Elliot's conflicting emotions since her departure,
Mrs. Willard's mind was as a page blank for impressions when her visitor
burst in upon her, pirouetted around the room, appropriated the softest
corner of the divan, and announced spiritedly:

"You needn't ask me where I've been, for I won't tell you; or what I've
been doing, for it's my own affair; anyway, you wouldn't be interested.
And if you insist on knowing, I've been revisiting the pale glimpses of
the moon--at three o'clock P.M."

"What do you mean, moon?" inquired Mrs. Willard, unconsciously falling
into a pit of slang.

"The moon we all cry for and don't get. In this case a haughty young
editor."

"You've been to see Hal Surtaine," deduced Mrs. Willard.

"You have guessed it--with considerable aid and assistance."

"What for?"

"On a matter of journalistic import," said Miss Elliot solemnly.

"But you don't cry for Hal Surtaine," objected her friend, reverting to
the lunar metaphor.

"Don't I? I'