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“Marian!” he cried.

But she was gone already and smiling at him mischievously from the arm of her father’s chair.

“I wonder,” Stacey said appealingly to Mrs. Latimer, “if you’d think me very abrupt in asking Marian to go up to the library with me. There’s something I want to talk over with her.”

Mrs. Latimer looked at the young man steadily, for the first time since his entrance. “No,” she said quietly, “do go.”

“I wonder,” said Marian gaily, “whether Marian is going to have anything to say about it.” But then, before the earnestness of Stacey’s expression, she ceased smiling and led him away.

Upstairs in the library she made him sit down in an easy chair and perched herself on an ottoman at his feet. She was admirably quick in responding to moods and she looked up at Stacey now with a tender gravity. He longed to stretch out his hand and touch her and draw her to him. But he knew that if he did so she would slip away from him to become all motion and fluidity again; so he merely sat and gazed at her fair curly hair, her eyes, her small mouth, and the delicate contour of her cheeks, thinking her like a Tanagra come to life.