“Don’t expect me to dance,” she said as Hal approached.  “I’ve twisted my foot.”

“I’m sorry,” said he blankly.

“Let’s find a quiet place where we can sit.  And then you may get me some supper.”

His face lighted up.  Esme Elliot remarked to herself that she had seldom seen a more pleasing specimen of the youth of the species.

“This is rather like a fairy-gift,” he began eagerly, as they made their way to a nook under the stairway, specially adapted to two people of hermit tastes.  “I shouldn’t have dared to expect such good fortune.”

“You’ll find me quite a fairy-godmother if you’re good.  Besides,” she added with calm audacity, “I wanted you to myself.”

“Why?” he asked, amused and intrigued.

“Curiosity.  My besetting sin.  You’re a phenomenon.”

“An ambiguous term.  It may mean merely a freak.”

“A new young man in Worthington,” she informed him, “is a phenomenon, a social phenomenon.  Of course he may be a freak, also,” she added judicially.

“Newness is a charm that soon wears off.”

“Then you’re going to settle down here?”

“Yes.  I’ve joined the laboring classes.”

“What kind of labor?”

“Journalism.  I’ve just started in, to-day.”

“Really!  Which paper?”

“The ‘Clarion.’”

Her expressive face changed.  “Oh,” she said, a little blankly.

“You don’t like the ’Clarion’?”

“I almost never see it.  So I don’t know.  And you’re going to begin at the bottom?  That’s quite brave of you.”

“No; I’m going to begin at the top.  That’s braver.  Anyway, it’s more reckless.  I’ve bought the paper.”

“Have you!  I hadn’t heard of it.”

“Nobody’s heard of it yet.  No outsider.  You’re the first.”

“How delightful!” She leaned closer and looked into his face with shining eyes.  “Tell me more.  What are you going to do with it?”

“Learn something about it, first.”

“It’s rather yellow, isn’t it?”

“Putting it mildly, yes.  That’s one of the things I want to change.”

“Oh, I wish I owned a newspaper!”

“Do you?  Why?”

“For the power of it.  To say what you please and make thousands listen.”  The pink in her cheeks deepened.  “There’s nothing in the world like the thrill of that sense of power.  It’s the one reason why I’d be almost willing to be a man.”

“Perhaps you wouldn’t need to be.  Couldn’t you exert the power without actually owning the newspaper?”

“How?”

“By exercising your potent influence upon the obliging proprietor,” he suggested smiling.

There came a dancing light in her eyes.  “Do you think I’d make a good Goddess-Outside-the-Machine, to the ’Daily Clarion’?”

“Charming!  For a two-cent stamp—­no, for a spray of your arbutus, I’ll sell you an editorial sphere of influence.”