nd made her the focus of the two men's eyes. It
was rather a quality implicit in the whole of her as she sat,
feminine and fragile by contrast with even the meager masculinity of
Selby, with a suggestion about her, an emanation, of steadfastness
and courage as piteous and endearing as the bravery of a lost child.
In Selby, staled and callous long since to all those infirmities of
the wits or the purse which are carried to a consul as to a
physician, there awoke at sight of her all that was genial and
protective in his sore and shriveled soul; in Waters, who shall say
what visions and interpretations?

She looked from one to the other of them with her trustful eyes. On
Waters they seemed to dwell for a moment as though in question.

"Yes," she repeated; "I came alone; there wasn't anybody to come with
me." Her voice, mild and pleasant, corresponded to the rest of her.
"I've been working down in Rumania for nearly a year, in the Balkan
Bank, and before that I was in Constantinople. But I've always wanted
to see Russia; I'd heard and read so much about it; so" with a little
explanatory shrug of her shoulders "I came."

Waters's still eyes widened momentarily; he, at any rate, understood.
He knew, contentedly and well, that need to see, the unease of the
spirit that moves one on, that makes of the road a home and of every
destination a bivouac. His chin settled upon his crossed arms as he
continued to take stock of this compatriot of the highways.

"Oh!" Selby was enlightened and a little disconcerted. This was not
turning out as he had expected. He had diagnosed a tourist, and now
discovered that he had been entertaining a job-seeker unawares. But
the girl's charm and appeal held good; she was looking at him
trustfully and expectantly, and he surrendered. He set his glasses
straight with a fumbling hand and resumed his countenance of friendly
and helpful interest.

"Then, you propose to, er, seek employment here in Nikolaieff," he
inquired.

"Yes," she answered serenely. "Typist and stenographer, or secretary
or translator in French and German and Rumanian" she was numbering
off the occupations on her fingers as she listed them "or even
governess, if there isn't anything else. But it seems to me, with the
English steamers coming here all the time and the shipbuilding works,
there ought to be some office I could get into."

Selby pursed his lips doubtfully.

"You don't know of anything?", she asked. "That's what I