which was a brilliant of unusual luster.
Warrington, however, had eyes for nothing but her face. For the past
six months he had noted a subtle change in her, a growing reserve, a
thoughtfulness that was slowly veiling or subduing her natural gaiety.
She now evaded him when he suggested one of their old romps in queer
little restaurants; she professed illness when he sent for her to join
him in some harmless junketing. She was slowly slipping away from him;
no, drifting, since he made no real effort to hold her. And why had he
made no real effort? Sometimes he thought he could answer this
question, and then again he knew that he could not. Ah, if he only
loved her! What a helpmeet: cheerful, resourceful, full of good humor
and practical philosophy, a brilliant wit, with all the finished
graces of a goddess. Ah, if indeed he only loved her! This thought
kept running through his mind persistently; it had done so for days;
but it had always led him back to the starting point. Love is not
always reasoning with itself. Perhaps--and the thought filled him with
regret--perhaps he was indeed incapable of loving any one as his
poet's fancy believed he ought to love. And this may account for the
truth of the statement that genius is rarely successful in love; the
ideal is so high that it is out of the reach of life as we, genius or
clod, live it.

"Isn't this determination rather sudden?" he asked, when the pause
grew insupportable.

"I have been thinking of it for some time," she replied, smiling. A
woman always finds herself at ease during such crises. "Only, I hadn't
exactly made up my mind. You were at work?" glancing at the desk.

"Yes, but I'm through for the night. It's only a scenario, and I am
not entirely satisfied with it."

She walked over to the desk and picked up a sheet at random. She was a
privileged person in these rooms. Warrington never had any nervous
dread when she touched his manuscript.

"How is it going to end?" she asked.

"Oh, they are going to marry and be happy ever after," he answered,
smiling.

"Ah; then they are never going to have any children?" she said, with a
flash of her old-time mischief.

"Will you have a cigarette?" lighting one and offering her the box.

"No; I have a horror of cigarettes since that last play. To smoke in
public every night, perforce, took away the charm. I hated that part.
An adventuress! It was altogether too close to the quick; for I am
nothing more or less t