Her head was tilted as she looked into his eyes, for she was below medium height. Eden, looking down at her, thought she was like some delicately tinted yet sturdy spring flower, gazing upward with a sort of gentle defiance.
He held the hand she offered in his own warm, deeply tanned one.
"My name is Alayne Archer," she said. "Mr. Cory will be ready to see you in a few minutes. As a matter of fact, he told me to have a little talk with you about your new poem. It is a narrative poem, is it not? But I did so want to tell you that I was the 'discoverer' of your first."
"Well then, I suppose I may as well hand the manuscript over to you at once."
"No. I should give it to Mr. Cory."
They both looked down at the packet in his hand, then their eyes met and they smiled.
"Do you like it very much yourself?" she asked. "Is it at all like the others?"
"Yes, I like it—naturally," he answered, "and yes, I think it has the same feeling as the others. It was good fun writing it, up there in the North, a thousand miles from anywhere."
"It must have been inspiring," she said. "Mr. Cory is going to visit the North this fall. He suffers from insomnia. He will want to hear a great deal about it from you." She led the way toward two upholstered chairs. "Will you please sit down and tell me more about the new poem? What is it called?"
"'The Golden Sturgeon.' Really, I can't tell you about it. You'll just have to read it. I'm not used to talking about my poetry. In my family it's rather a disgrace to write poetry."
They had sat down, but she raised herself in her chair
