The outer swing doors thudded in the hall, there was the click of a latch as the inner door was pushed open and Gilbert Lothian entered.
The girl recognised him at once, as he made his way under the dome towards her, and her eyes grew wide with wonder. Lothian was wearing a suit of grey flannel, his hair as he took off his straw hat was a little tumbled, his face fresh and clear.
"How do you do," he said, with the half-shy deference that came into his voice when he spoke to women. "It was such a lovely afternoon that I thought I might venture to bring back your copy of 'Surgit Amari' myself."
Rita Wallace flashed her quick, humorous smile at him—the connection between the weather and his wish was not too obvious. But her smile had pleasure of another kind in it also—he had wanted to see her again.
Lothian laughed boyishly. "I wanted to see you again," he said, in the very words of her thought.
The girl was flattered and delighted. There was not the slightest hint of self-consciousness in her manner, and the flush that came into her cheeks was one of pure friendliness.
"It is very kind of you to take so much trouble," she said in a voice as sweet as singing. "I was so disappointed when you had to go away so early from the Amberleys' last night."
She did not say the conventional thing about how much his poems had meant to her. Girls that he met—and they were not many—nearly always did, and he always disliked it. Such things meant nothing when they came as part of ordinary greetings. They jarred upon the poet's sensitive taste and he was pleased and interested to find that this girl said nothing of the sort.
"Well, here's the book," he said, putting it down upon Rita's table. "And I've written in it as you asked. Do you collect autographs then?"
She shook her head. "Oh, dear me no," she answered. "I think it's silly to collect anything that isn't beautiful. But, in a book one values, and with which one has been happy, the author's autograph seems to add to the book's personality. But I hate crazes. There are lots of girls that wait outside stage doors to make popular actors write in their books. Did you know that, Mr. Lothian?"