THE TOUCHSTONE
"There are George Sand's letters to Flaubert."
"Ah!" Glennard hesitated. "Was she—were they—?" He chafed at his own ignorance of the sentimental by-paths of literature.
"If you want love-letters, perhaps some of the French eighteenth-century correspondences might suit you better—Mlle. Aïssé or Madame de Sabran—"
But Glennard insisted. "I want something modern—English or American. I want to look something up," he lamely concluded.
The librarian could only suggest George Eliot.
"Well, give me some of the French things, then—and I'll have Mérimée's letters. It was the woman who published them, wasn't it?"
He caught up his armful, transferring it, on the doorstep, to a cab which earned him to his rooms. He dined alone, hurriedly, at a small restaurant near by, and returned at once to his books.
Late that night, as he undressed, he wondered what contemptible impulse had forced from him his last words to Alexa Trent. It was bad enough to interfere with the girl's chances by hanging about her
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