But he found it less easy than he had imagined. The great man (whom they all addressed simply as "George" or "Frenny") was evidently trying to be friendly, in his dry sardonic way; but he paid no heed to Mrs. Spear's allusions to "our young poet," and his remarks to Vance were merely perfunctory questions as to his life in the West, and his present sojourn at the Tracys'. Once indeed he asked, blinking absently at the boy through his glasses: "And what's the next move to be?" but on Vance's answering: "I want to get onto a newspaper," his interest seemed to flag. "Oh, of course," he merely said, as who should imply; "What's the use of expecting anything different in a world of sameness?" and the blood which had rushed to Vance's face ebbed back to his heart. A few hours earlier, as he talked of his poetry with Halo Spear by the mountain pool, everything had seemed possible; now he thought bitterly: "When it comes down to hardpan girls don't know anything anyhow." And it gave him a grim satisfaction to class his mountain nymph in the common category.

But when she reminded him of his promise to help her with the books his feeling veered to adoration, and her appearance at the Willows, vivid and inspiring, instantly lifted him to the brow of Thundertop. "She carries that pool everywhere with her," he thought, and was seized by the desire to embody the fancy in a new poem; and when she, broke off in her dusting and sorting to say: "I gave your poetry to George Frenside to read last night," he was too much agitated to thank her, or to put a question. A moment later, she seemed to forget what she had said, carried away by a dip into Andrew Marvell (What—he didn't know "The Coy Mistress"? Oh, but he must just listen to this!); and finally, after whirling him on from one book to another for an hour or so, she vanished as suddenly as she had come to join the mysterious "Lewis," the fellow she was going to marry, Vance supposed.

She came back the next day, and the next. On the fourth she promised to leave her keys with him and to meet him again at the Willows the next morning; but she carried the keys off with her, and he had to get the hired man, who scrutinized him sulkily, to lock up. And the fifth day there had been no sign of her … and now twilight would soon be falling, and it was time to go.