--just as they had sat so many
years ago when Athalie was a child of twelve and wore a ragged cloak
and hood of red.

Sometimes, leisurely consuming her pastry, she glanced demurely at her
lover, sometimes her blue eyes wandered to the sunny picture outside
where roses grew and honeysuckle trailed and the blessed green grass
enchanted the tired eyes of those who dwelt in the monstrous and arid
city.

Presently she went away to the room he had prepared for her; and he
lay back lazily in his chair and lighted a cigarette, and watched the
thin spirals of smoke mounting through the sunshine. When she returned
to him she was clad in white from crown to toe, and he told her she
was enchanting, which made her eyes sparkle and the dimples come.

"Mrs. Connor is going to remain and help me," she said. "All my things
are unpacked, and the bed is made very nicely, and it is all going to
be too heavenly for words. Oh, I _wish_ you could stay!"

"To-night?"

"Yes. But I suppose it would ruin us if anybody knew."

He said nothing as they walked back into the main hallway.

"What a charming old building it is!" she exclaimed. "Isn't it odd
that I never before appreciated the house from an esthetic angle? I
don't suppose you'd call this architecture, but whatever else it may
be it certainly is dignified. I adore the simplicity of the rooms;
don't you? I shall have some pretty silk curtains made; and, in the
bedrooms, chintz. And maybe you will help me hunt for furniture and
rugs. Will you, dear?"

"We'll find some old mahogany for this floor and white enamel for the
bedrooms if you like. What do you say?"

"Enchanting! I adore antique mahogany! You know how crazy I am about
the furniture of bygone days. I shall squander every penny on things
Chippendale and Sheraton and Hepplewhite. Oh, it is going to be a
darling house and I'm the happiest girl in the world. And you have
made me so!--dearest of men!"

She caught his hand to her lips as he bent to kiss hers, and their
faces came together in a swift and clinging embrace. Which left her
flushed and wordless for the moment, and disposed to hang her head as
she walked slowly beside him to the front door.

Out in the sunshine, however, her self-possession returned in a pretty
exclamation of delight; and she called his attention to a tiny rainbow
formed in the spray of the garden hose where Connor was watering the
grass.

"Symbol of hope for us," he said under his breath.