skirt that's long
enough for me--and--and to wear stockings without any patches, and
silk, Denny, silk--next to my skin!"

CHAPTER IV

At her first swift coming when she had cried out to him there in the
dark and run across to kneel at his knees, a dull, shamed flush had
stained his lean cheeks with the realization that, in his own great
bitterness he had failed even to wonder whether she had been
forgotten, too.

Now as his big hand hovered over the tumbled brightness of her hair,
loose upon his sleeve, that hot shame in turn disappeared. After the
quivering gasps were all but stilled, he twice opened his lips as if
to speak, and each time closed them again without a word. He was
smiling a faint, gravely gentle smile that barely lifted the corners
of his lips when she turned in his arms and lifted her face once more
to him.

"We don't mind very much," she repeated in a half whisper. "Do
we--either of us--now?"

Slowly he shook his head. With effortless ease he stooped and swung
her up on one arm, seating her upon the bare table before the window.
Another match flared between his fingers and the whole room sprang
into brightness as he touched the point of flame to the wick of the
lamp bracketed to the wall beside him.

She sat, leaning forward a little, both elbows resting upon her slim
knees, both feet swinging pendulum-like high above the floor, watching
with a small frown of curiosity growing upon her forehead, while he
stooped without a word of explanation and dragged a bulky package from
the table and placed it beside her. Then she sighed aloud, an audible
sigh of sheer surprise after he had broken the string and drawn aside
the paper wrapper.

Just as they had seemed in the picture they lay there under her amazed
eyes--the pointed, satiny black slippers of the dancing girl, with
their absurdly slender heels and brilliant buckles, and filmy
stockings to match. And underneath lay two folded squares of
shimmering stuff, dull black and burnished scarlet, scarce thicker
than the silk of the stockings themselves.

The faint, vaguely self-conscious smile went from Denny Bolton's lips
while he stood and watched her bend and touch each article, one by
one--the barest ghost of contact. Damp eyes glowing, lips curled half
open, she lifted her head at last and gazed at him, as he stood with
hands balanced on his hips before her.

A moment she sat immobile, her breath coming and going in soft,
fluttering