“All right,” returned Mr. Lansing cheerfully.  A moment later the front door closed below.  Then Selwyn came back into the library.

For an hour he sat there telling her the gayest stories and talking the most delightful nonsense, alternating with interesting incisions into serious subjects:  which it enchanted her to dissect under his confident guidance.

Alert, intelligent, all aquiver between laughter and absorption, she had sat up among her silken pillows, resting her weight on one rounded arm, her splendid young eyes fixed on him to detect and follow and interpret every change in his expression personal to the subject and to her share in it.

His old self again!  What could be more welcome?  Not one shadow in his pleasant eyes, not a trace of pallor, of care, of that gray aloofness.  How jolly, how young he was after all!

They discussed, or laughed at, or mentioned and dismissed with a gesture a thousand matters of common interest in that swift hour—­incredibly swift, unless the hall clock’s deadened chimes were mocking Time itself with mischievous effrontery.

She heard them, the enchantment still in her eyes; he nodded, listening, meeting her gaze with his smile undisturbed.  When the last chime had sounded she lay back among her cushions.

“Thank you for staying,” she said quite happily.

“Am I to go?”

Smilingly thoughtful she considered him from her pillows: 

“Where were you going when I—­spoiled it all?  For you were going somewhere—­out there”—­with a gesture toward the darkness outside—­“somewhere where men go to have the good times they always seem to have. . . .  Was it to your club?  What do men do there?  Is it very gay at men’s clubs? . . .  It must be interesting to go where men have such jolly times—­where men gather to talk that mysterious man-talk which we so often wonder at—­and pretend we are indifferent.  But we are very curious, nevertheless—­even about the boys of Gerald’s age—­whom we laugh at and torment; and we can’t help wondering how they talk to each other—­what they say that is so interesting; for they somehow manage to convey that impression to us—­even against our will. . . .  If you stay, I shall never have done with chattering.  When you sit there with one lazy knee so leisurely draped over the other, and your eyes laughing at me through your cigar-smoke, about a million ideas flash up in me which I desire to discuss with you. . . .  So you had better go.”

“I am happier here,” he said, watching her.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Then—­then—­am I, also, one of the ‘good times’ a man can have?—­when he is at liberty to reflect and choose as he idles over his coffee?”

“A man is fortunate if you permit that choice.”

“Are you serious?  I mean a man, not a boy—­not a dance or dinner partner, or one of the men one meets about—­everywhere from pillar to post.  Do you think me interesting to real men?—­like you and Boots?”