the present moment had that air of the floweret surprized while shrinking, which adds a good thirty-three per cent. to a girl's attractions. Her nose, he noted, was delicately tip-tilted. A certain pallor added to her beauty. Roland's heart executed the opening steps of a buck-and-wing dance.
“Pardon me,” he went on, “but you appear to be in trouble. Is there anything I can do for you?”
She looked at him again—a keen look which seemed to get into Roland's soul and walk about it with a searchlight. Then, as if satisfied by the inspection, she spoke.
“No, I don't think there is,” she said. “Unless you happen to be the proprietor of a weekly paper with a Woman's Page, and need an editress for it.”
“I don't understand.”
“Well, that's all any one could do for me—give me back my work or give me something else of the same sort.”
“Oh, have you lost your job?”
“I have. So would you mind going away, because I want to go on crying, and I do it better alone. You won't mind my turning you out, I hope, but I was here first, and there are heaps of other benches.”
“No, but wait a minute. I want to hear about this. I might be able—what I mean is—think of something. Tell me all about it.”
There is no doubt that the possession of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds tones down a diffident man's diffidence. Roland began to feel almost masterful.
“Why should I?”
“Why shouldn't you?”
“There's something in that,” said the girl reflectively. “After all, you might know somebody. Well, as you want to know, I have just been discharged from a paper called 'Squibs.' I used to edit the Woman's Page.”
“By Jove, did you write that article on 'Men Who Speak——'?”
The hard manner in which she had wrapped herself as in a garment vanished instantly. Her eyes softened. She even blushed.
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