Jim Shepherd's Scare

"I have been asleep!" she exclaimed.

"A most unnecessary statement," he answered, smiling. "I have been standing looking at you for five minutes at least."

"How fortunate that I gave you the key!" she declared. "I don't suppose I should ever have heard you. Now please stand there in the light and let me look at you."

"Why?"

"I want to look at a man who has had supper with Mademoiselle Idiale."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Am I supposed to be a wanderer out of Paradise, then?"

She looked at him doubtfully.

"They tell strange stories about her," she said; "but oh, she is so beautiful! If I were a man, I should fall in love with her if she even looked my way."

"Then I am glad," he answered, "that I am less impressionable."

"And you are not in love with her?" she asked eagerly.

"Why should I be?" he laughed. "She is like a wonderful picture, a marvelous statue, if you will. Everything about her is faultless. But one looks at these things calmly enough, you know. It is life which stirs life."

"Do you think that there is no life in her veins, then?" Zoe asked.

"If there is," he answered, "I do not think that I am the man to stir it."

She drew a little sigh of content.

"You see," she said, "you are my first admirer, and I haven't the least desire to let you go."