“It is a conventional way of putting it, but are you fond of poetry, Mr. Ware?”

“Well, yes, I suppose I am,” replied Theron, much mystified.  “I can’t say that I am any great judge; but I like the things that I like—­and—­”

“Meredith,” interposed Celia, “makes one of his women, Emilia in England, say that poetry is like talking on tiptoe; like animals in cages, always going to one end and back again.  Does it impress you that way?”

“I don’t know that it does,” said he, dubiously.  It seemed, however, to be her whim to talk literature, and he went on:  “I’ve hardly read Meredith at all.  I once borrowed his ‘Lucile,’ but somehow I never got interested in it.  I heard a recitation of his once, though—­a piece about a dead wife, and the husband and another man quarrelling as to whose portrait was in the locket on her neck, and of their going up to settle the dispute, and finding that it was the likeness of a third man, a young priest—­and though it was very striking, it didn’t give me a thirst to know his other poems.  I fancied I shouldn’t like them.  But I daresay I was wrong.  As I get older, I find that I take less narrow views of literature—­that is, of course, of light literature—­and that—­that—­”

Celia mercifully stopped him.  “The reason I asked you was—­” she began, and then herself paused.  “Or no,—­never mind that—­tell me something else.  Are you fond of pictures, statuary, the beautiful things of the world?  Do great works of art, the big achievements of the big artists, appeal to you, stir you up?”

“Alas! that is something I can only guess at myself,” answered Theron, humbly.  “I have always lived in little places.  I suppose, from your point of view, I have never seen a good painting in my life.  I can only say this, though—­that it has always weighed on my mind as a great and sore deprivation, this being shut out from knowing what others mean when they talk and write about art.  Perhaps that may help you to get at what you are after.  If I ever went to New York, I feel that one of the first things I should do would be to see all the picture galleries; is that what you meant?  And—­would you mind telling me—­why you—?”

“Why I asked you?” Celia supplied his halting question.  “No, I don’t mind.  I have a reason for wanting to know—­to satisfy myself whether I had guessed rightly or not—­about the kind of man you are.  I mean in the matter of temperament and bent of mind and tastes.”

The girl seemed to be speaking seriously, and without intent to offend.  Theron did not find any comment ready, but walked along by her side, wondering much what it was all about.

“I daresay you think me ‘too familiar on short acquaintance,’” she continued, after a little.

“My dear Miss Madden!” he protested perfunctorily.