ity even to
conventionalities, and they are quite within the powers of any amateur."

There was an interval of silence which Miss Gannion employed in bringing
herself back to the physical world around her. Thayer's singing always
swayed her profoundly; it gave her the impression of the ultimate
satisfaction of a wish which had haunted her whole life. During the past
two months, she and Thayer had established relations of cordial
friendship. They had met frequently in the world which already was
clamorous for Thayer's appearing, and Thayer was a frequent guest at
Miss Gannion's home. He always sang to her; it had become so much a
matter of routine that now he never waited for an invitation. Once
seated at the piano, talking and singing by turns, she allowed him to
follow out the bent of his mood; but, wherever it led him, she was
always conscious of the insistent, throbbing note which told her that,
underneath his self-control, there pulsed a fiery nature which was
curbed, but not yet tamed, that the day might come when the Puritan
would meet the Russian face to face, and the Russian would be dominant,
if only for one brief hour. And then? Often as she asked herself the
question, Margaret Gannion never swerved from her original answer. In
the end, the Puritan would rule. No man could so dominate others and
fail to dominate himself.

Thayer, meanwhile, had risen and was thoughtfully pacing the room. Miss
Gannion shook off the last of her reverie and turned to watch him.

"What is it, Mr. Thayer?" she inquired suddenly.

He came back to the fire and, deliberately moving the trinkets on the
mantel, made a place for his elbow. Then he hesitated, with his clear,
deep-set eyes resting on her face.

"I think I am going to ask your advice," he said slowly.

"Or my approval. It amounts to the same thing in a man."

It was a direct challenge, and it was made with deliberate intention.
Accustomed as she was to the semi-imaginary mental crises of
struggling, strenuous youth, she yet shrank from the intentness of
Thayer's mood.

He ignored the challenge.

"No; it is advice whether to act at all. Later, when I have acted, it
will be time to demand your approval."

"But you may not like my advice."

"Very possibly. I am not binding myself to follow it."

Her color came again this time not altogether from pleasure.

"Then why do you ask it?"

"Because I need fresh light on the subject. As often as I go over it, I
find