“I feel better, too, thank you.  The air is so exhilarating.  I’m glad to see you’re still in the land of the living.  Addie has told me of your debauches of work.”

“Addie is foolish.  I never felt better.  Come inside.  Don’t be afraid of walking on the papers.  They’re all old.”

“I always heard literary people were untidy,” said Esther smiling. “You must be a regular genius.”

“Well, you see we don’t have many ladies coming here,” said Raphael deprecatingly, “though we have plenty of old women.”

“It’s evident you don’t.  Else some of them would go down on their hands and knees and never get up till this litter was tidied up a bit.”

“Never mind that now, Miss Ansell.  Sit down, won’t you?  You must be tired.  Take the editorial chair.  Allow me a minute.”  He removed some books from it.

“Is that the way you sit on the books sent in for review?” She sat down.  “Dear me!  It’s quite comfortable.  You men like comfort, even the most self-sacrificing.  But where is your fighting-editor?  It would be awkward if an aggrieved reader came in and mistook me for the editor, wouldn’t it?  It isn’t safe for me to remain in this chair.”

“Oh, yes it is!  We’ve tackled our aggrieved readers for to-day,” he assured her.

She looked curiously round.  “Please pick up your pipe.  It’s going out.  I don’t mind smoke, indeed I don’t.  Even if I did, I should be prepared to pay the penalty of bearding an editor in his den.”

Raphael resumed his pipe gratefully.

“I wonder though you don’t set the place on fire,” Esther rattled on, “with all this mass of inflammable matter about.”

“It is very dry, most of it,” he admitted, with a smile.

“Why don’t you have a real fire?  It must be quite cold sitting here all day.  What’s that great ugly picture over there?”

“That steamer!  It’s an advertisement.”

“Heavens!  What a decoration.  I should like to have the criticism of that picture.  I’ve brought you those picture-galleries, you know; that’s what I’ve come for.”

“Thank you!  That’s very good of you.  I’ll send it to the printers at once.”  He took the roll and placed it in a pigeon-hole, without taking his eyes off her face.

“Why don’t you throw that awful staring thing away?” she asked, contemplating the steamer with a morbid fascination, “and sweep away the old papers, and have a few little water-colors hung up and put a vase of flowers on your desk.  I wish I had the control of the office for a week.”

“I wish you had,” he said gallantly.  “I can’t find time to think of those things.  I am sure you are brightening it up already.”

The little blush on her cheek deepened.  Compliment was unwonted with him; and indeed, he spoke as he felt.  The sight of her seated so strangely and unexpectedly in his own humdrum sanctum; the imaginary picture of her beautifying it and evolving harmony out of the chaos with artistic touches of her dainty hands, filled him with pleasant, tender thoughts, such as he had scarce known before.  The commonplace editorial chair seemed to have undergone consecration and poetic transformation.  Surely the sunshine that streamed through the dusty window would for ever rest on it henceforwards.  And yet the whole thing appeared fantastic and unreal.