"I should expect to pay any competent person liberally."
He flushed a little, and after an instant said:
"I thought at first that I might see my way to offering myself as an instructor, but on reflection I find it would be difficult for me to find time. I know of no better persons to suggest than one of our friends of the other evening,—Mr. Fleisch or Miss Kingsley. Either of them is admirably well informed and intelligent."
"Oh, but if you could arrange it so, I should much prefer you, Mr. Spence," I exclaimed with genuine eagerness. "I did not dare to imagine that such an arrangement was possible. But now that you have suggested it yourself, I cannot give up the idea without remonstrance."
I looked at him beseechingly, and he blushed again in a manner to cause me self-consciousness. He hesitated, and then in a decided tone, as if he were resisting a temptation, said:—
"It is out of the question, Miss Harlan. I have not time. Mr. Fleisch is an excellent instructor."
"Very well; Mr. Fleisch then," I answered, a little upset by his confusion. "Will you speak to him about it and arrange the terms?"
He assented, and the awkward pause that followed was relieved by the entrance, at the same moment, of Aunt Helen and Mr. Barr, though not in company it need scarcely be added.
Aunt Helen was in one of her richest and most imposing street costumes, whereas the artist-poet wore black velveteen instead of brown, and a flowing yellow tie instead of a cherry one. She regarded him, I could see, with a mixture of horror and wonder, which led me at once to perform the duties of a general introduction, preliminary to taking possession of Mr. Barr, and relegating to Aunt Helen the less unconventional philosopher. Paul Barr however bowed to her in so superb and deferential a manner that I thought she looked rather flattered than otherwise, which relieved my worst apprehensions, and I found myself straightway chatting with him in a somewhat spirited vein. Heard, in my own drawing-room, Mr. Barr's compliments and ardent speeches moved me to badinage, and I saw no harm in accepting them as the ordinary give-and-take of the would-be lady-killer, more original and therefore more entertaining than those of a fashionable flirt, but still of the same general character. I affected to be alternately irate and pleased at what he said. Meanwhile his eyes looked unutterable things, and he interspersed his flatteries with a tissue of abnormal but poetic fancies. He was undeniably fascinating, and all the more so because I felt in his society somewhat as if I were walking through a gunpowder vault, with a lighted candle. But there was this difference, that in his case the character of the possible explosion was wrapped in mysterious uncertainty, which added an agreeable element of curiosity to my sensations.
Presently he drew from his breast pocket a small volume in white vellum and gold, which he presented to me. It was a copy of his poems,—"The Paradise of Passion, and other Rhythms." I glanced at the fly-leaf, and to my astonishment and confusion perceived that underneath the inscription, "Miss Harlan, with the respectful homage of him who did these verses," was a sonnet "To Virginia," which began,—