"But you want me to be personal?"

Pollen laughed. "Of course! Doesn't everybody want _you_ to be
personal?"

For an instant Mrs. Ennis looked again at Burnaby and Mary Rochefort,
and a slightly rueful smile stirred in her eyes. It was amusing that
she, who detested large dinners and adored general conversation, should
at the moment be so engrossed in preventing the very type of
conversation she preferred. She returned to Pollen. What a horrid man he
really was! Unangled and amorphous, and underneath, cold! He had a way
of framing the woman to whom he was talking and then stepping back out
of the picture. One felt like a model in all manner of dress and
undress. She laughed softly. "Don't," she begged, "be so mysterious
about yourself! Tell me--" she held him with eyes of ingratiating
sapphire--"I've always been interested in finding out just what you
are, anyway."

Far back in Pollen's own eyes of golden brown a little spark slowly
burst into flame. It was exactly as if a gnome had lighted a lantern at
the back of an unknown cave. Mrs. Ennis inwardly shuddered, but
outwardly was gay.

How interminably men talked when once they were launched upon that
favorite topic, themselves! Pollen showed every indication of reaching a
point of intellectual intoxication where his voice would become
antiphonal. His objective self was taking turns in standing off and
admiring his subjective self. Mrs. Ennis wondered at her own kindness of
heart. Why did she permit herself to suffer so for her friends; in the