her harm as is that
wind at the window," the young man added.

The bird's song again joined itself to the gay voice of the girl, and
then he heard quick footsteps on the stairs, and as he rose to greet her
the room seemed to glow like the heart of a ruby.

They clasped hands and looked into each other's eyes a moment. He saw
love and admiration in her face. She saw only friendliness and some
dark, unsmiling mood in his.

They sat down and talked upon the fringe of personalities which he
avoided. She fancied that she saw a personal sorrow in his face and she
longed to comfort him. She longed to touch his vexed forehead with her
fingers.

They talked on, of late books and coming music. He noticed how clear and
sweet and intelligent were her eyes. Refinement was in the folds of her
dress and in the faint perfume which exhaled from her drapery. The firm
flesh of her arms appealed to him like the limbs of a child so beautiful
and tender!

He saw in her face something wistful, restless. He tried to ignore it,
to seem unconscious of the adoration he saw there, for it pained him. It
affected him as a part of the general misdirection of affection and
effort in the world.

She asked him about his plans. He told her of them. He grew stern and
savage as he outlined the work which he had set himself to do. His hands
spread and clutched, and his teeth set together involuntarily. "It is to
be a fight," he said; "but I shall win. Bribery, blackmail, the press,
and all other forces are against me, but I shall win."

He rose at length to a finer mood as he sketched the plan which he hoped
to set in action.

She looked at him with expanding eyes and quickened breath. A globed
light each soft eye seemed to him.

He spoke more freely of the struggle outside in order to make her feel
her own sweet security--here where the grime of trade and the reek of
politics never came.

At last he rose to go, smiling a little as if in apology for his dark
mood. He looked down at her slender body robed so daintily in gray and
white; she made him feel coarse and rough.

Her eyes appealed to him, her glance was like a detaining hand. He felt
it, and yet he said abruptly:

"Good night."

"You'll come to see me again!"

"Yes," he answered very simply and gravely.

And she, looking after him as he went down the street with head bent in
thought, grew weak with a terrible weakness, a sort of hunger, and deep
in her heart she cried out:

"