His voice was soft and melodious, and held the hint of a caress.

"Did you read my little book ?" he asked suddenly.
She nodded.
"Yes, I read--some of it," she said, and the colour deepened on her face.
He chuckled.
"I suppose you thought it rather curious that a man in my position should bother his head to write poetry, eh ?" he asked.

"Most of it was written before I came into this beastly shop, my dear--before I developed into a tradesman!" She made no reply, and he looked at her curiously.
"What did you think of them ?" he asked.
Her lips were trembling, and again he mistook the symptoms.
"I thought they were perfectly horrible," she said in a low voice.
"Horrible!" He raised his eyebrows.
"How very middle-class you are, Miss Rider!" he scoffed.

"Those verses have been acclaimed by some of the best critics in the country as reproducing all the beauties of the old Hellenic poetry." She went to speak, but stopped herself and stood with lips compressed.
Thornton Lyne shrugged his shoulders and strode to the other end of his luxuriously equipped office.
"Poetry, like cucumbers, is an acquired taste," he said after a while.
"You have to be educated up to some kind of literature.

I daresay there will come a time when you will be grateful that I have given you an opportunity of meeting beautiful thoughts dressed in beautiful language." She looked up at this.
"May I go now, Mr.Lyne ?" she asked.
"Not yet," he replied coolly.