Arthur Stanwood Pier

“ She had learned that long ago. So she drew up a chair and watched him while he slipped the string over the corners of the package. Paper followed string to the floor; a thin, flat book was revealed, with a paper label on the back.
"Endymion!" cried Mr. Averill.
"The first edition, Mary! And look inside it, will you? Now, won't old Max turn green with envy!"
She took the book and opened it. "Why, the leaves aren't cut!" she said.
"Exactly! It's a treasure—perhaps the only one of its kind in existence."
"But I've heard Max speak of his first edition of Endymion as uncut." ”

“ He looked so miserable that she added, sympathetically, "I'll try to help you out, Dick."
"I have a perfect mania for cutting the pages of books—I can do it by the hour," he explained. "And I've always felt that what is such fun for me is a bother for everybody else—and that people are always glad to have me do it for them. But I'll never monkey with other people's things again."
Throughout dinner Dick Redfield was unusually subdued. Duval, too, was quiet; Helen said little; Mrs. Averill and her husband exchanged perplexed glances. ”

“ Roderick"—a soft flush colored Mrs. Averill's pale cheeks—"don't you suppose a woman knows when a man who has once had love in his eyes for her shows it again for another—for her daughter?"
Averill stirred uneasily. "You—you don't seem to have tried to check it, if you noticed it," he protested.
"Should I have tried—would you have had me try? If Max really loves her—we know Max!"
"The best fellow in the world. If only he were about twenty years younger."
"But he's young really—in spirit."
"What do you think is Helen's attitude?" ”

“ For a man of his years, who had argued so many cases before the Supreme Court, to hesitate and be silent with a twittering heart before a young girl was, Max Duval assured himself, unworthy. He was aware that he had appropriated one of Helen's golden afternoons, when she might have been playing tennis in a tennis tournament or sailing in a yacht race ”

“ That Redfield boy always seemed to me a fresh, assertive youth—"
"He'll be successful."
"Max has been successful, too—and without ever pushing himself. He's too diffident, Max is."
"That's part of his charm. It's partly because of that that he may be dangerous."
"You're wrong there. The man who's very diffident wins the liking of all women—and hardly ever the love of one."
"But if Max should be able this time! I did feel he'd be a good husband—if Helen loved him! ”

“ Roderick, it might perfectly well happen, even though until now it has never crossed her thoughts."
"I'm very much in the dark about my daughter," said Averill. "What other men are there?"
"I imagine that Dick Redfield thinks about her a good deal, for one. He has invited himself over for dinner to-night."
"Dick Redfield and Max as rival suitors—how grotesque! Dick Redfield—do they think of marrying at that age?" ”

“ Max was so irritating with his brag about his Endymmion that I told Warnsley to try to pick up a copy for me. My collection of nineteenth-century poets has always been better than Max's—more complete. Warnsley went on a still-hunt for several months. This copy came to light in the auction sale of the library of a Devonshire country house. It had been resting on the top shelf probably ever since its purchase in 1818. I dare say the purchaser read the scurrilous review of it in Blackwood's—the one that told Keats to go back to his gallipots—and chucked it aside in disgust ”

“ Besides, he is rather self-confident about a good many things; I don't mean that he shall be about this. As soon as I see that his self-confidence is wavering a little and his sensitiveness is a little hurt—then I'll tell him. ”

“ But her husband was too absorbed with a delighted thought to defend himself. He was chuckling quietly.
"Where's Max, Mary?"
Mrs. Averill's lips primmed. "He and Helen went to walk some time ago."
"I'm going to put this book on the table in the sitting-room where Max can't help seeing it; I'll let him find it for himself. And when he picks it up and opens it!—" Averill rubbed his leg and chuckled. "It will be as good as a play, to watch his face and hear him try to get away with it. I'll put it on the table now." He disappeared through the French window.
"Roderick!" Mrs. ”