His mortification at having thus exposed his dull rusticity was swallowed up in conjectures as to just what her tolerant familiarity with such things involved.  He had never before met a young unmarried woman who would have confessed to him any such knowledge.  But then, of course, he had never known a girl who resembled Celia in any other way.  He recognized vaguely that he must provide himself with an entire new set of standards by which to measure and comprehend her.  But it was for the moment more interesting to wonder what her standards were.  Did she object to George Sand’s behavior?  Or did she sympathize with that sort of thing?  Did those statues, and the loose-flowing diaphonous toga and unbound hair, the cigarettes, the fiery liqueur, the deliberately sensuous music—­was he to believe that they signified—?

“Good-morning, Mr. Ware.  You have managed by a miracle to hit on one of my punctual days,” said Celia.

She was standing on the doorstep, at the entrance to the musical department of Thurston’s.  He had not noticed before the fact that the sun was shining.  The full glare of its strong light, enveloping her figure as she stood, and drawing the dazzled eye for relief to the bower of softened color, close beneath her parasol of creamy silk and lace, was what struck him now first of all.  It was as if Celia had brought the sun with her.

Theron shook hands with her, and found joy in the perception, that his own hand trembled.  He put boldly into words the thought that came to him.

“It was generous of you,” he said, “to wait for me out here, where all might delight in the sight of you, instead of squandering the privilege on a handful of clerks inside.”

Miss Madden beamed upon him, and nodded approval.

“Alcibiades never turned a prettier compliment,” she remarked.  They went in together at this, and Theron made a note of the name.

During the ensuing half-hour, the young minister followed about even more humbly than the clerks in Celia’s commanding wake.  There were a good many pianos in the big show-room overhead, and Theron found himself almost awed by their size and brilliancy of polish, and the thought of the tremendous sum of money they represented altogether.  Not so with the organist.  She ordered them rolled around this way or that, as if they had been so many checkers on a draught-board.  She threw back their covers with the scant ceremony of a dispensary dentist opening paupers’ mouths.  She exploited their several capacities with masterful hands, not deigning to seat herself, but just slightly bending forward, and sweeping her fingers up and down their keyboards—­able, domineering fingers which pounded, tinkled, meditated, assented, condemned, all in a flash, and amid what affected the layman’s ears as a hopelessly discordant hubbub.