And Noreen, cleaving for one last second to the outer edge of the banisters, smiled up at him, so strainingly up, that her face, to the man above her, looked like a little flat white plate with a crimson-lipped rose wilting on it.
Then she disappeared into the parlor.
With equal abruptness the Political Economist changed his mind about going out, and went back instead to his own room and plunged himself down in his chair, and smoked and thought, until his friend, the Poet at the big writing-desk, slapped down his manuscript and stared at him inquisitively.
"Lord Almighty! I wish I could draw!" said the Political Economist. It was not so much an exclamation as a reverent entreaty. His eyes narrowed sketchily across the vision that haunted him. "If I could draw," he persisted, "I'd make a picture that would hit the world like a knuckled fist straight between its selfish old eyes. And I'd call that picture 'Talent.' I'd make an ocean chopping white and squally, with black clouds scudding like fury across the sky, and no land in sight except rocks. And I'd fill that ocean full of sharks and things—not showing too much, you know, but just an occasional shimmer of fins through the foam. And I'd make a sailboat scooting along, tipped 'way over on her side toward you, with just a slip of an eager-faced girl in it. And I'd wedge her in there, wind-blown, spray-dashed, foot and back braced to the death, with the tiller in one hand and the sheet in the other, and weather-almighty roaring all around her. And I'd make the riskiest little leak in the bottom of that boat rammed desperately with a box of chocolates, and a bunch of violets, and a large paper compliment in a man's handwriting reading: 'Oh, how clever you are.' And I'd have that girl's face haggard with hunger, starved for sleep, tense with fear, ravished with excitement. But I'd have her chin up, and her eyes open, and the tiniest tilt of a quizzical smile hounding you like mad across the snug, gilt frame. Maybe, too, I'd have a woman's magazine blowing around telling in chaste language how to keep the hair 'smooth' and the hands 'velvety,' and admonishing girls above all things not to be eaten by sharks! Good Heavens, Man!" he finished disjointedly, "a girl doesn't know how to sail a boat anyway!"
"W-h-a-t are you talking about?" moaned the Poet.
The Political Economist began to knock the ashes furiously out of his pipe.
"What am I talking about?" he cried; "I'm talking about girls. I've always said that I'd gladly fall in love if I only could decide what kind of a girl I wanted to fall in love with. Well, I've decided!"
The Poet's face furrowed. "Is it the Much-Loved Girl?" he stammered.
The Political Economist's smoldering temper began to blaze.
"No, it isn't," ejaculated the Political Economist. "The Much-Loved Girl is a sweet enough, airy, fairy sort of girl, but I'm not going to fall in love with just a pretty valentine."